When most actors talk about life-changing roles, they’re referring to projects that catapulted them to new levels of success or critical acclaim. Starring as Bernard “Benny” Upshaw Jr. in The Upshaws certainly did that for Jermelle Simon as his first main role in a TV series. But it was portraying an initially closeted character who eventually comes into his identity as a gay man that truly transformed Simon.
“What helped me to come out myself was, year after year, Bernard just kept growing,” Simon tells The Hollywood Reporter. “It felt like in the beginning we were on the same playing field. We were both struggling. And then he came out, and I’m like, ‘Bro, whoa, whoa, I’m not [ready], hold on,’ and he just kept going. Parts of me felt like I had to catch up with Bernard’s expansion because Bernard is also me…I can’t do him justice if I’m not free myself because he deserves to be able to express himself.”
Over five seasons broken into seven parts, audiences have witnessed that expansion, from Bernard repairing his relationship with his dad, Benny Sr., played by Mike Epps, and finding out he’s a dad himself in season one, to struggling with parenting, dating as an out man and entrepreneurship when he fulfills his lifelong dream of opening a gym. Now, in the final season of the Netflix sitcom, co-starring Kim Fields and Wanda Sykes, a more settled Bernard is afraid to rock the boat too much after he and his on-again, off-again boyfriend Hector (Dewayne Perkins) become officially locked in.
Offscreen, fans of Simon’s have witnessed a similar trajectory, with the actor who regularly TikTok’s about his life as a girl dad and fitness fanatic coming out on social media on National Coming Out Day in 2024, and last April revealing he’s in a relationship with digital storyteller Obio Jones, whom he wed this past October.
“That was another thing that really changed my life; I still think about it to this day like, ‘oh, everyone knows I’m gay,’ ” the 36-year-old says of coming out. “That was the first moment where I realized, this is really freeing, and there’s no limit to how far I can go.”
Below, Simon chats with THR about the end of The Upshaws, saying goodbye to his character after sharing such a personal connection and what he wants to do next.
It’s hard to find info on you online. All I know is you’re from South Carolina. Mom was a nurse and dad worked in a shipyard. When did acting become the dream?
We’ve got to change that (Laughs). Not that it’s not true, but someone wrote a bio for me and just put it on IMDB. Yes, I am from Florence, South Carolina. I went to Wilson High School, which is the biggest high school out there. I was really proud to graduate from that high school. I thought that everyone in every state felt that way, and I quickly realized that’s a small-town thing. No one talks about their high school. People talk about their college reunions, and I’m talking about my high school. It’s like, stop (Laughs). Then I moved to Virginia. I went to college for 2.3 seconds. I quickly realized I want to be an actor. At that time, I felt you didn’t have to go to college for acting — and obviously you don’t — but if I knew what I know now, I would go for performing arts. I still ended up doing theater. I did a bunch of community theater in Virginia at Norfolk State and all over town. But I had a child at 19, so my brain was like, “I got to get this money to take care of her.” So I went to medical assistant school and worked with a foot doctor for a second. I was a mailman for nine months. I could have lost my mind. It was the dogs; they didn’t give me enough mace. It was the back country roads. Going postal is a real thing.
I always wanted to pursue acting, though. I started doing plays when I was in the third grade, and then I kept doing it. When I got to middle school, I started playing football, and then in high school, I was like, “Oh, I can’t act because that’s not cool.” And in South Carolina, that’s not a thing. So I kind of pushed it away. And then when I moved to Virginia, where no one knew me, I started acting again. I got a fresh start, ended up having a baby, and then had another one, and I was still pursuing acting. I was so laser-focused, like I’m going to take care of these babies, but I’m also going to pursue my dreams. Then in 2013, I was married at the time, and my wife was a flight attendant, and she got transferred to L.A. So we moved, and I worked overnight at a high-fructose corn syrup plant.
You have lived.
What’s crazy is people ask me all the time, “How are you pursuing acting with children?” It was a time when you couldn’t just go on social media and be discovered. You had to move here, there were no sub tapes, you had to be on the grind. It’s still a grind now, but very different. But I didn’t know another life. My whole adult life, I’ve been a father. So I would work overnight so that I could still audition in the morning, and I just kept doing that. I did a lot of extra work. I did community theater out here, which then helped me do union theater. I did Fences at ICT theater, and Vickie Thomas was casting for the film adaptation, so they came to see the play, and they were like, “Oh, we want you to audition for something.” I didn’t know what it was. So I audition. And like an hour later, they were like, “Can you audition again on Sunday, but at this address?” The address was Denzel Washington’s house. I remember driving up. It was like Fort Knox. [Security] was really, really tight. I go in, and it’s Russell Hornsby, Viola Davis, Denzel Washington, of course, his wife, Vickie Thomas, and we’re just at his pool house. We do the script, and I remember reading it. I’m fresh off the stage, so it’s like muscle memory to me. And I’m saying my Cory lines to Troy, who was Denzel, and I remember him looking at me like, “Well, hold up.” So I auditioned three more times, and I had a screen test at Paramount with him and Viola. I didn’t end up getting it, Jovan [Adepo] did. That was my first Hollywood heartbreak. But now I look at it like, wow, I still can use that story to remind myself this is where I’m supposed to be. This is an industry where you’re just thrown all over the place. You’re like, “Is this a pipe dream?” That potential role got me with a bigger agency, which then got me bigger auditions, and then I ended up getting The Upshaws, and here we are.
How much did you know about your character, Bernard’s, arc starting out?
They just told me that he was closeted, he was fighting his sexuality, and so was I at the time. I felt very connected to it, but very afraid of it. I walked out [of the audition reading with Mike] without anyone calling me, and I cried in my car because I [knew] this was going to be a thing that pushes me. And I went through every emotion for the first three years of that show because I had to say all the words that I was afraid to say. I had to say, “I’m gay.” I had to say, “I like a man.” All these things that we’re conditioned to believe were so wrong. I had to face my fears. And that was the thing that changed my professional career, yes, but bigger than that, my soul.
Were you still married to your wife at the time you got the role?
I got a divorce in 2018, and I got the role in 2020. And that was another thing. It wasn’t even about my marriage more than it was, when you’re in something that is not for you — what’s for you, will not miss you — but I think it can delay it a little bit. I freed myself from the person I was cosplaying with, in a sense, because I truly feel like God can’t bless who you pretend to be. At that point, I wasn’t necessarily in denial about my sexuality; I was afraid of it. But even that little bit opened my world up. And the more I kept opening up, the bigger everything got because I stopped pretending. Season one me would’ve never been this open, but I can have fun now. I can really enjoy my career now. I didn’t get a chance to enjoy it.
Bernard’s story wraps up nicely in the season finale. He finally gets his man and gets to be the dad he always wanted to be. How did you feel about how things wrapped up for your character?
I felt good about it. At the beginning of the season, I wasn’t quite ready to let the character go because I felt like I was just now getting my feet wet. I just did a TikTok, and I said, “I’m about to interview with The Hollywood Reporter, and I’m excited; I’m going to take this time to really embrace this,” because I never got the opportunity to do press for the show and be myself because I wasn’t out. I was telling my publicist, “I don’t want to answer questions about sexuality.” “I don’t want to discuss my personal life.” And now it’s like, “Ask me, let’s go.” “This is me.” So I started to really feel myself and really get there, and now it’s over. But I am pleased with the way they wrapped [his story] up, and I think the audience will appreciate the conclusion. I put Bernard to rest with a smile on my face for sure.
Tell me about the last day on set.
What’s crazy — I don’t know if I’ve ever talked about this — my grandmother passed away three days before the final day of filming. I’d invited my daughters on set that day, and then we got the news. It happened so fast. She went to the hospital one day, and then the next day, they were telling me and my brothers to come home a little sooner. And my grandmother had called me a week before, and she knew it was the final season, and she was like, “Like everything, all good things come to an end, and there’ll be another.” And in so many ways, it was her goodbye to me, too — I’ve been good to you, and my time is up. So she passed away, and we still had two more shoot dates. And the way they rallied behind me, individually, everyone came into my dressing room at different times to just sit with me and talk to me about it. And it just solidified that we are definitely a family because in the time that I really needed them, they really showed up.
Before the show wrapped, you got to act with your real-life partner and now-husband Obio Jones. What was that like?
The first time, in part six, we were friends, so it was like I’m just bringing my best friend to work. And that was fun for him, too, because I knew that there was a role. So I got the script and sent it to him like, “You still have to audition. May the best man win.” So he auditioned, he did a really good job. They were like, “We want him.” And it was fun for him to see what it takes to make an episode of television. Being a content creator, I watch him direct, do sound, speed, all these things that he has to be — on camera, talent behind the scenes, the showrunner — when he makes his own content, so I think it was cool to watch him see everyone have a job and do a thing. And then the second time, he was definitely my boyfriend. That was fun. I was a little nervous, though, because the pressure of your best friend seeing you is different than the pressure of your boyfriend seeing you. He takes my breath away, and I was like, “I need my breath.” (Laughs.)
You’re newlyweds now, and on your wedding day, you said, “No aisle. No audience, just us husbands.” Why did you decide to make that day so intimate?
It was never the plan for us to be a public couple. I just was so tired of hiding. I wanted to be myself, which is a very transparent person. I share my kids; I share my life, and he’s such a huge part of my life, so it was supposed to be that I just showed my man, like everybody else shows their man every now and then. The internet kind of made it a thing. And it has always been us to just be real, and we had to ask ourselves, “Why are we having a wedding?” “Do we need a wedding?” “We’re ready to get married now. We’ve done the work; we know this is the plan.” So when I thought about that, I was like, it’s time that I do what’s for me, and what’s for me right now is to marry the love of my life when I feel ready, when he feels ready. We had different reasons for why we felt like we wanted to just courthouse it, but it was still, we’re ready, let’s just do it. And I think it’s something about taking back, not necessarily your power as if someone took it away, but being public, some things just don’t feel like yours anymore. And as much as I love the support that people give to us, I think at certain moments it felt like, let me reel this in. This is my family, this is my real life. I joke around, guys, but this is my heart. And there are times you’re just like, let me make sure we’re all on the same accord. And the hoopla of it all, we didn’t want that.
After playing a character that was so personal and life-changing, what are you looking to do next?
I feel like Bernard is a very impactful role, at least it was for me, and I want to stay on that trajectory, [acting in] things that really help people to feel seen and change the way they view themselves. I also want the coin too (Laughs). I want to get back on the stage. I have a meeting coming up with an artistic director at a playhouse that I feel is going to go well. I don’t want to say that I don’t want to do any more sitcoms, but I kind of want to Will Smith this thing and go straight to film. In a perfect world, I want to do a film a year, garden in the back, and run and be in my gym all day. I want to work and go home. Hollywood, I want to work four months (Laughs). But really, I’m very interested in a completely different character. I have a bald head now, a full beard. I’m not necessarily reinventing or rediscovering — I’m doing that as well — but I want to truly put Bernard to rest and not be seen as “The Upshaws guy,” and go into more single-cam drama. I started off on the stage with drama, and people who knew me before the show still find it crazy that I’m in a comedy. So I just want to show range in an impactful way, and I think that the opportunity is coming.
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