Do we like Renée O'Connor?
Our score: 7 out of 10. Nothing harmful or dodgy turned up and she has a long, warm history with queer fans, but there's little documented good beyond that.
Renée O'Connor is the Gabrielle to Lucy Lawless's Xena, the sidekick in the 90s fantasy show that became a lesbian icon. The show's romantic subtext was famously managed by studio nerves, as a 2025 look back at the series recounts. That history is why queer viewers ask about her in the first place.
Scandals first, since that's what you came for: we found none. No lawsuits, court rulings or credible accusations turned up for her in the searches we ran, and no tabloid pile-ons worth repeating. That's a short chapter, and honestly the best kind.
On the harm test, she made a faith-based drama, A Question of Faith, in 2017. Asked whether a Christian film might upset her lesbian fan base, she said she wouldn't want anyone to feel she was creating division and called for more understanding and less judgment. She also told Fox News she wasn't worried it would upset LGBT fans, saying “I just want to help people connect with one another.”
Faith alone is never a fail here, and nothing in what we read shows her pushing harm against anyone. We didn't find her words on vaccines, climate or politics, so we can't say more on those. The company check is also thin: the only recent projects we confirmed were the 2017 faith film and her reunion with Lawless.
The real good here is warmth rather than a charity roll-call. We didn't find documented fundraising or activism, so we won't invent any. What the record does show is decades of goodwill with a fandom that has loved her back, and a long working friendship with her old co-star.
So it's a yes, with the honest note that this is a thin file rather than a glowing one. If something harmful were out there, we'd expect it to show up in the coverage, and it didn't. Her queer fans seem to have good reason to keep trusting her.