Jerry O’Connell’s Real Name Is Not Jerry

Jerry O’Connell has been Jerry O’Connell his entire career — except that’s not actually his name. The Stand By Me actor, 52, dropped the reveal on the May 8 Mother’s Day episode of Live with Kelly and Mark, appearing alongside his mom Linda, who wasted no time spilling the truth to hosts Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos.

“His real name is Michael Jeremiah Witkowski O’Connell,” Linda announced on air. Witkowski, Jerry clarified, is his mother’s maiden name. As for why he’s been Jerry his whole life: “His grandfather is Jeremiah, and our favorite cousin is Jerry DeScipio.”

Consuelos pressed the actor on whether the full name ever came out during childhood moments of trouble. Jerry shut it down immediately.

“No, I was always a Jerry,” he said. “And by the way, sometimes I look at myself and go, ‘Yeah, I am a Jerry! I don’t look like a Michael, actually.’”

Kelly Ripa told the actor she’d “heard through the grapevine” that she’d been calling him a “fake name” — which is a very Kelly Ripa way to find out your longtime friend has been going by an alias.

“Very Active, Very Energetic, and Always in Trouble”

Since this was a Mother’s Day episode, the conversation naturally drifted into what Jerry was actually like as a kid — and Linda had receipts.

“He was very active, very energetic and always in trouble,” she said. Jerry immediately translated: “Code word for annoying.”

Linda went further, recalling a teacher who complained that her son “talks too much and he never sits still and he’s always raising his hand and he never stops talking.” Her response? “I said, ‘You don’t realize, you’re trying to stifle the very things we’re trying to encourage in this boy.’ So she shut up!”

Jerry described himself as “hyperactive” — a word he used carefully, adding, “I don’t know if they use it anymore and I’m sorry if anyone’s offended by that.”

It’s a characterization that tracks with what he’s shared before. When reflecting on the 40th anniversary of Stand By Me in December 2025, Jerry told People that he was always getting in trouble at school for making jokes or speaking out of turn — until director Rob Reiner pulled him aside on set and told him to do more of exactly that. “Go farther,” Reiner reportedly told him. For a hyperactive kid who’d spent his whole childhood being shushed, that moment clearly stuck.

And Linda, for her part, has always been in his corner. A 2015 anecdote from Page Six captures it perfectly: Jerry joked onstage that if people recognize him and call out “Hey, you’re the fat kid from Stand by Me,” and his mom is nearby, she will physically chase those strangers down to defend him. “Sir, my son isn’t fat!”

The Wedding Day “Out” Linda Offered Her Son

The Mother’s Day episode had another standout moment — and this one involved Rebecca Romijn.

Jerry and Rebecca married in July 2007 during an intimate ceremony in Calabasas, California, after meeting in the fall of 2004 and getting engaged a year later. They share 17-year-old twin daughters, Charlie and Dolly. But on the morning of the wedding, Jerry stayed with his parents while Rebecca stayed with her family — and Linda apparently used the car ride to the ceremony to make one last offer.

“We did get into the car on the way to the wedding, and my mother was like” — at this point Jerry slipped into a mock mafia accent — “‘Listen, if you feel uncomfortable about this, you don’t got to do this. I’m just saying. If you want, go to the airport. No questions. It’s OK. You sure about this? She’s a beautiful girl. She’s very nice, but are you sure about this?’”

He made clear that his mom loves “everything” about Rebecca. Linda confirmed: “I do.”

Linda did share one gentle complaint about when her son and daughter-in-law come to visit: Rebecca apparently has a habit of rearranging the furniture. “One time, she moved a 10-foot dining room table. I went to sit at it, and it was gone,” Linda said. Jerry’s defense? “My wife likes to interior design.”

Before Jerry was married, Linda joked, she had no problem telling him when she didn’t like who he was dating. “I would basically say, ‘I don’t like her. Kick her to the curb.’” Now, he says he sees himself doing something similar with his own daughters — encouraging them not to get too serious too fast. “Girls, you’ve got to play the field. You can’t just go out with one,” he told Ripa and Consuelos. “I see their friends who are in relationships and they don’t have fun anymore.”

Michael Jeremiah Witkowski O’Connell. He still doesn’t look like a Michael. But the man knows who he is.