JESSE TYLER FERGUSON is an hot, ginger American actor born on this date. He is best known for portraying Mitchell Pritchett on the hit sitcom Modern Family, which earned him five consecutive Primetime Emmy Award  nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series and four Screen Actors Guild wards for Outstanding Performance by and Ensemble in Comedy.

Ferguson made his Broadway debut in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, for which he and his ensemble cast won a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Cast Member. He has appeared in theatre adaptations of A Winter’s Tale,  The Producers, A Midsummer Nights Dream, Spamalot and The Merchant of Venice. For his performance in the 2016 Broadway production of Fully Committed, Ferguson was awarded a  Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Solo Performance.

In September 2012, Ferguson and his lawyer husband, Justin Mikita, started the non-profit charity ‘Tie The Knot’, an effort to raise funds in support of marriage equality, using bow ties sold to retail. They officially launched it as their engagement announcement in an online video where they explain only seven states at the time had marriage equality. In an interview Ferguson stated that he wanted to do something that was smaller and manageable in case it did not work out as a business model.

The foundation sells limited-edition bow ties with “proceeds going to organizations nationwide that are working toward marriage equality”. Their collections are designed by the couple plus guest designers, and is sold by The Tie Bar, a Naperville, Illinois-based online men’s neckwear company.

In January 2013, the couple were recruited by Lieutenant Governor of Illinois Sheila Simon to lobby legislators to pass SB10 which would allow same-sex marriage. The bill passed both legislative houses, and Governor Pat Quinn signed the bill into law, going into effect on June 1, 2014.

In September 2012, Ferguson announced his engagement to lawyer Justin Mikita, his boyfriend of nearly two years. They married in Manhattan in July 2013, with the playwright and screenwriter Tony Kushner officiating. Their son, Beckett Mercer Ferguson-Mikita, was born in 2020.

On the process of coming out, Ferguson said he had to tell his father three times (when he was 17, 19 and 21): “It’s a coming out process for them as well,” and it takes time.