When the Tell Me Lies series finale wrapped on February 17, 2026, audiences expected cast interviews full of tearful goodbyes and behind-the-scenes memories. What they did not expect was one of the show’s most private actresses stepping forward the very next day to share the most personal chapter of her life yet. The cat missal partner reveal — warm, unrehearsed, and completely genuine — arrived during a sit-down interview where 26-year-old Catherine Missal announced she is gay, with her partner Jess Panneton seated right beside her, smiling at every word.
It was the kind of moment that cuts through the usual entertainment industry noise. No staged announcement. No calculated social media rollout. Just a laugh, a candid admission, and a loving look exchanged between two people who clearly know each other deeply. Within hours, the clip was circulating widely online, and fans who had spent three seasons watching Missal’s character Bree untangle herself from one toxic situation after another felt something unexpected — pure, uncomplicated joy for the actress herself.
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Who Is Cat Missal, and How Did She Get Here?
Catherine Missal was born and raised in New Jersey, the fifth of six children in a family with deep roots in the entertainment world. Her siblings include musicians, an influencer, and a fellow actor. Growing up surrounded by creative people, Missal found her own path early. At just five years old, she was spotted by a talent manager after performing in a community theater production. Her parents were initially cautious — they did not rush her into anything — but within a few years, she was doing professional stage work.
That stage work eventually led her to Broadway. Before she was known to television audiences anywhere, Missal performed in Broadway productions of Mary Poppins and A Tale of Two Cities as a child. It is a resume detail that surprises people who discovered her through Hulu, and it speaks to the depth of training and experience she brought to every scene of Tell Me Lies.
She joined the Hulu drama when it launched in September 2022, playing Bree — a Baird College student navigating trauma, complicated friendships, and a series of choices that kept viewers permanently on edge. The character grew considerably more layered across three seasons, and so did Missal’s performance. Critics specifically noted the emotional nuance she brought to Bree, a character who could have easily become one-dimensional in less capable hands.
Three Seasons, One Bombshell Finale
Tell Me Lies was always designed to run for exactly three seasons. Creator Meaghan Oppenheimer planned the full arc from the beginning, and the series finale, which aired February 17, 2026, delivered on every promise the show had made to its audience over the years. The ending was polarizing in the best possible way — the kind that sparks hours of debate among viewers who genuinely care about the characters.
Bree’s conclusion was particularly striking. In the final episode, it is revealed that Bree was the one who leaked Lucy’s confession tape — a twist that reframed much of what viewers thought they understood about her motivations throughout the season. On top of that, Bree marries her college boyfriend Evan while having secretly maintained a connection with Wrigley, who was dating her own best friend and roommate Pippa at the time. The layered betrayals and moral compromises made Bree one of the most discussed characters from the entire run of the show.
Missal has spoken openly about how emotionally taxing it was to inhabit Bree across all three seasons. She described processing the accumulated weight of her character’s story — the foster care background, the complicated relationship with her mother, the constant cycle of bad decisions — as genuinely difficult. Even in interviews after filming wrapped, she talked about sitting with the trauma of everything Bree had lived through.
The Interview That Changed Everything
On February 18, 2026 — the day after the finale aired — Missal sat down at the Teen Vogue offices alongside Jess. The conversation turned, at one point, to the gallery of troubled men that populate the Tell Me Lies universe. Toxic relationships, manipulative behavior, and emotional damage are practically the show’s central themes. When asked how she felt about all of it, Missal laughed and offered a response nobody saw coming: “Well, I am gay, so thank God.”
Jess, seated right next to her, responded immediately and warmly: “You’re safe with me.”
The exchange lasted only seconds, but the impact was enormous. Missal had kept her personal life entirely private throughout the show’s run. While other cast members were publicly known to be in relationships with one another — including several high-profile pairings among the ensemble — Missal had given the public almost nothing about her life outside of work. That restraint made the moment of openness feel genuinely significant.
She is not the first actress to come out publicly in a casual, low-key way, but there is something particularly affecting about doing it with your partner right there beside you, in real time, in front of an interviewer. It communicated safety, stability, and love without any of the performance that often accompanies celebrity announcements.
Jess Panneton: The Partner Who Was Already There
Jess Panneton, who appears to work as a DJ, has actually been part of Missal’s life for a considerable amount of time. Their earliest traceable public photo together dates to Valentine’s Day 2020, which suggests the relationship has been going strong for at least six years — long predating Missal’s national fame from Tell Me Lies.
The story of how they met fits their personalities entirely. Jess revealed during the Teen Vogue interview that the two first crossed paths at a drag show in West Hollywood. Missal’s sisters were with her that night, and they immediately noticed something was different — a shift in their sister’s energy, a certain attention she was paying to one particular person in the room. “Who are you flirting with? Who’s that?” they asked. Now, as Missal put it herself, “we’re all family.”
The two currently live together in the Valley area of Los Angeles. Their household includes two cats named Chicken and Bunny — a detail that has endeared them instantly to a certain corner of the internet that was already predisposed to love Cat Missal and will now never stop thinking about the fact that she owns cats named Chicken and Bunny.
A Life Built Deliberately Away From the Spotlight
What makes Missal’s story interesting beyond the headline is the consistency of her character throughout. She is someone who clearly makes intentional choices about what she shares and what she protects. For years, even as the show grew and her profile rose, she held her personal life close. That was not avoidance — it was privacy, maintained thoughtfully, until she was ready to let people in on her own terms.
Outside of acting, Missal describes herself as an extreme hiker who regularly sets out alone for hours at a time. That detail — someone who seeks solitude and physical endurance as recreation — tells you something about a person who is not chasing the loudest version of fame. She contributed two original songs to the Tell Me Lies soundtrack, including a haunting cover that resonated with the show’s emotional tone. Music, it turns out, is not just a side interest but a genuine creative outlet she intends to pursue more seriously now that the show has concluded.
When asked about what kind of work she wants to take on next, Missal expressed a desire for projects with real texture and moral complexity — something with grit, she said. She also mentioned an interest in science fiction. Given that she cited Alien as a personal favorite film, it is not hard to imagine her thriving in genre material that demands sustained psychological intensity.
What the Reaction Says About the Moment
The response to Missal’s coming out has been overwhelmingly positive, and that matters. In an entertainment landscape that still sometimes treats LGBTQ+ celebrity disclosures as spectacle, Missal managed to make hers feel like nothing more than a person being honest about her life — because that is exactly what it was. She did not orchestrate a cover story or a carefully worded statement. She laughed, told the truth, and let Jess be right there next to her.
Fans of Tell Me Lies who spent three seasons watching Bree struggle to be seen and known by the people around her found a kind of poetic resolution in watching the actress who played her be so openly, effortlessly herself. There is something meaningful in that contrast, even if it was entirely unplanned.
As Missal moves into the next phase of her career — whatever form that takes — she does so as someone who has been fully honest about who she is, on her own timeline, in her own words, with her partner and her cats waiting at home.
If this story hit differently than you expected, leave a comment below and let us know your favorite Bree moment from all three seasons — and keep watching for what Cat Missal does next.
