Dean or Jess? Milo Ventimiglia Finally Weighs In on the Great ‘Gilmore Girls’ Debate (VIDEO)

Meaghan Darwish April 7, 2021, 6:00 pm

gilmore girls jared padalecki milo ventimiglia — Everett Collection; ©Warner Bros./Everett Collection

This Is Us fans may swoon over Jack Pearson every Tuesday night on NBC, but long before Milo Ventimiglia took on that role, he played Jess on the beloved Gilmore Girls.

Since its run in the early 2000s, Gilmore Girls fans have been torn over who was the best match for Alexis Bledel‘s Rory Gilmore, including The Tonight Show‘s host Jimmy Fallon. The late-night talk show host hasn’t been shy about his love for the WB series and that didn’t go unnoticed in a recent episode featuring Ventimiglia.

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Appearing to promote This Is Us, the actor’s office background during the virtual interview caught Fallon’s eye as he wondered, “I’m looking at one sign I can see in the upper lefthand corner because, you know, I’m a fan of yours since Gilmore Girls and it says…,” Fallon began telling Ventimiglia.

The actor cut him off before he could read the sign aloud, pulling it down from the wall and presenting a closer look for viewers. “It says, ‘I love Dean 4 Ever,'” Ventimiglia announces, holding the sign up for inspection. The paper note was tacked onto the frame of his Emmy nomination announcement for the 2016-2017 season.

(Credit: Courtesy of Everett Collection)

Of course, Gilmore Girls fans will recognize Dean, not as Ventimiglia’s character, but rather Jared Padalecki’s who was also Rory’s first boyfriend before Jess. “Jared and I are really good friends and I made the sign for some photograph that somebody was looking for online or something,” Ventimiglia explained.

“So I made the sign, and after I made it, I said, ‘Well, let me just hang onto this cause this is cool.’ And I literally just stuck it right onto my Emmy notification,” he added. Now, whether that means he believes Dean was the better choice for Rory is unclear, but the love Ventimiglia has for Padalecki is certainly palpable.

(Credit: Warner Bros. Television/ Courtesy: Everett Collection)

Both Ventimiglia and Padalecki appeared in multiple seasons of Gilmore Girls before returning to reprise their roles in the event series Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life for Netflix. Check out the full exchange between the actor and Fallon below.