The comedy star, who is the brains behind Irish matriarch Agnes Brown, explained there was a lot of hurt in the family when his marriage to Doreen Dowdall came to an end
The cast of Mrs Brown's Boys at the National Television Awards at The O2 Arena on January 25, 2017 in London, England.
Brendan O'Carroll has revealed his daughter Fiona refused to speak to him after he divorced her mum Doreen Dowdall.
The Mrs Brown's Boys creator's first marriage came to an end in 1999 when his career playing beloved Irish matriarch Agnes Brown took off.
Doreen, who is mum to Brendan's children Fiona, Danny and Eric, didn't want a life in the limelight and his success put a strain on their marriage.
After 22 years together they decided to split up, which caused a lot of heartache in the family.
Brendan has now revealed that Fiona wouldn't speak to him because she thought his then co-star and now wife Jenny Gibney was the reason behind her parents split.
However, Brendan and Jenny, who went on to marry, only became romantically involved after the divorce.
"I think Fiona was hurt not because she thought I loved Jenny more than I loved her mother, but that I might love Jenny more than I loved her," he said.
The father and daughter reconciled soon after, and Fiona is one of Brendan's many relatives who stars on the hit BBC and RTE sitcom.
Working with family makes sense for the O'Carrolls, as Brendan told The Sun: "Because we're so close even when there's fights we resolve it quickly because we have to get on and work."
The comedian also touched on Fiona's split from husband and co-star Martin Delany, who called time on their relationship after 15 years of marriage.
He insists the split "didn't cause any problems" and that the former couple "probably get on better now than when they were married".
Last year, Fiona spoke candidly about the hurt she felt when her parents split up.
The actress tried to hang on to her own marriage to Martin because she remembers how public her own parents break up was.
She didn't want her four sons Felix, Eli, Isaac and Dexter, coming from a broken marriage. But, after a lot of time to think, she and Martin split in December 2018.
Fiona said: "I think I hung on for as long as I did because when my own parents broke up, that was very public, and there was a lot of hurt involved there.
"For me, as a child, coming from a broken marriage, I didn’t want that for my kids."
She added to the RTÉ Guide: "But having said that, my parents are extremely happy now so sometimes you have to go through hard times to get to happier times and as much as I tried my best to make it work, we tried for years and it just got to that point where we both decided, or I decided, it was time.
“I felt that I needed to be a role model for my kids and as much as they weren’t happy about us splitting up, they are OK actually, because with myself and Martin, our main focus is the kids and we didn’t actually tell the kids until we were almost a year separated."
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