Christina McKinney

Christina McKinney is a fictional character in the American comedy-drama series Ugly Betty. She is played by Ashley Jensen. Christina is based on Bertha Mu–oz de Gonz‡lez, only she isn't fat, but both have a great ear for gossip.

Background

Christina emigrated to the United States from Scotland and is one of 10 children; she is a seamstress who works at MODE magazine and calls her office "The Closet" because of the leftover fashion designs she has in her space, of which she uses to whip up new outfits from time to time. Christina would later find out that her workspace also served as a passageway to a secret hideaway for Bradford Meade and the late Fey Sommers.

Her knowledge of what goes on at her workplace inside and out comes in handy as she becomes fast friends and forms an alliance with new fellow co-worker Betty Suarez. And like Betty, she too has dreams, in which she aspires to be the next fashion designer.

She finally got her chance to show off her designs in the episode "I'm Coming Out", only to learn that Wilhelmina chose her show to set up for the return of Alexis Meade, who helped bring down Bradford Meade by framing him for the murder of Fey Sommers. Prior to the event a week earlier, Wilhelmina tricked Christina into turning a package in to the police in order to frame Bradford.

After turning in the evidence, Wilhelmina has been using that as a crutch, so Christina can serve as a minion for Wilhelmina; even though Christina wants nothing to do with Wilhelmina's schemes. However, when Wilhelmina threatens to blame her for turning in the evidence by lying to Betty, Christina has no choice but to go along, even if it means she has to protect her friendship with Betty after she told her to never sell her soul to the devil when she talked Betty out of cashing a check Wilhelmina gave her to help her father in exchange for turning on Daniel. When Christina came clean to Betty in "Punch Out", the outcome would result in Betty ending her friendship with Christina because of her selling out to Wilhelmina. But the two would make up as Betty realized that she needs her more than ever in "Petra-Gate", with Christina offering to help Betty seek out any info about Wilhelmina's schemes.

In the finale of Season 1, while intoxicated, she reveals that she has had a husband named Stuart (a insurance agent), whom she left in Scotland. She tells Amanda that ever since she left the country no one has bothered to look for her since. Afterwards in the second season she would be the one who would tell Betty's crush, Henry Grubstick, that his girlfriend Charlie cheated on him and may have gotten pregnant by Betty's dentist, not Henry.