BLIND GOSSIP

The #1 Blind Item Site in the World!

Joss Whedon Is A Lying Hypocrite

[Blind Gossip] Joss Whedon is a famous writer/director/producer.

He is best known for Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Toy Story, Firefly, Angel, Dollhouse, The Avengers, and Agents of SHIELD.

Over the years, he has held himself up a supporter of feminism and strong female characters.

His ex-wife is now saying… that it was all a lie!

From The Wrap:

Joss Whedon Is a ‘Hypocrite Preaching Feminist Ideals,’ Ex-Wife Kai Cole Says

There were times in our relationship that I was uncomfortable with the attention Joss paid other women. He always had a lot of female friends, but he told me it was because his mother raised him as a feminist, so he just liked women better. He said he admired and respected females, he didn’t lust after them. I believed him and trusted him. On the set of “Buffy,” Joss decided to have his first secret affair.

Joss admitted that for the next decade and a half, he hid multiple affairs and a number of inappropriate emotional ones that he had with his actresses, co-workers, fans and friends, while he stayed married to me.

When he walked out of our marriage, and was trying to make “things seem less bewildering” to help me understand how he could have lied to me for so long, he said, “In many ways I was the HEIGHT of normal, in this culture. We’re taught to be providers and companions and at the same time, to conquer and acquire — specifically sexually — and I was pulling off both!”

Despite understanding, on some level, that what he was doing was wrong, he never conceded the hypocrisy of being out in the world preaching feminist ideals, while at the same time, taking away my right to make choices for my life and my body based on the truth. He deceived me for 15 years, so he could have everything he wanted. I believed, everyone believed, that he was one of the good guys, committed to fighting for women’s rights, committed to our marriage, and to the women he worked with. But I now see how he used his relationship with me as a shield, both during and after our marriage, so no one would question his relationships with other women or scrutinize his writing as anything other than feminist.

You can read the entire article here.

Perhaps he’s not the “woke bae” he claimed to be just a couple of months ago?

Anyway, right after the essay was published, the popular fan site Whedonesque was shut down.

DC Entertainment recently announced that Joss Whedon has been selected as the writer/director/producer of the upcoming feature film Batgirl.

Similar: Never Another Woman

Actresses with whom he had affairs:

[Optional] Can a man cheat on his wife, sleep with his female employees, and still be a feminist? Why or why not? Keep your comments civil.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. aaagspr says

    First ones that came to mind were Amy Acker (Fred on Angel) and Eliza Dushku (Faith on Buffy). Am also thinking Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy) and Charisma Carpenter (Cordelia from Buffy). I don’t think cheating makes him non-feminist but I think it gets iffy his using his position to get all these young, gorgeous women (wrong for women to do to men too). I love Buffy, Serenity, Firefly, but I think there were hints of his not being quite what he passes himself off as in his shows.

  2. Jmarie123 says

    He’s gross, his wife is humiliated that he didn’t want her, all the other girls had a choice to say NO. I’m tired of women playing victim. You could have turned him down. Instead you chose to sleep with him.

  3. NativeAtlantaGirl says

    If you cannot honor your wife, a woman, who you pledge your life to, how can you “respect” women when you disrespect your wife?

    If he was man enough, should have either kept it in his pants or ended thr marriage before humiliating his wife further. And since he is in favor of “equality” – he should give her half PLUS and extra 25% for cheating. That’s fair.

  4. Satine75012 says

    Actresses with physical affairs : Charisma Carpenter, Julie Benz, Amy Acker, Summer Glau, Eliza Dushku, Emma Caulfield
    Actresses with emotional affairs : Well I can only see Alyson Hannigan, it’s obvious they had one, she was always at his house.

  5. aaashell says

    I remember back in the late 90s there were lots of rumours about him and Alyson Hannigan because of the way they were always all over each other and Eliza Dushku was another. There has also been whispersfor years about Summer Glau and Amy Acker. The only one I think wouldn’t go near him was SMG.

  6. LC1216 says

    Wait…I totally forgot. Maybe this guy is anti-feminist. I do remember Charisma getting fired, because she got pregnant. If she was one of the women he was having the affair with, he may have gotten angry that she married someone else and her head was on the chopping block because of it, or was it in fact, because she got pregnant?

    I doubt it was Allison Hannigan who had the affair with Whedon. She married Wesley in real life.

  7. SnakeyJ says

    Absolutely he can be a feminist and have affairs. Feminism means believing a woman is equal to a man. She has the right to work, get paid well, vote etc etc etc. If he was really fooling around, that would make him an a**hole at best. I’m actually very shocked to see so many people think that having an affair can’t make him a feminist… and to call an affair “emotional abuse” is ridiculous. His ex actually sounds extremely bitter and she’s lashing out to try and damage his…

    • KatarinaJ says

      If the affairs are MUTUAL and if you are in a position of power, initiate, and have the ability to make or break someone’s career, this isn’t really equal footing is it? I don’t think cheating is the issue. He indulged the casting coach or alpha male patriarchy of success and blames his behavior on the expectations and entrappings of that world and not himself… THAT Is passing the buck and yes a problem I think.

  8. Ladieu says

    I’d say Julie Benz was definitely one of the actresses, along with Eliza Dushku, I wouldn’t have put it Alyson Hannigan either after season 2, given the high profile of her character later in the series. I don’t think Sarah needed to sleep with the director but she probably did anyway.

    You can still have feminist values and be sexual and empowered etc, but in this case it just comes across as casting couch and having his cake…

  9. Diet Cokehead says

    Cheating doesn’t mean he’s not a feminist. But he used feminism to help hide his affairs: saying that’s why he spends so much time with women and why his “friends” are all women. That makes him a bad feminist.
    It’s the same thing that happened to Anna Faris and Chris Pratt: he went from being a guy women didn’t look twice at to being powerful and having women throw themselves at him.
    Buffy the Vampire Slayer has been my favorite show of all time for 20 years. I’ve been watching it…

  10. Insiderher says

    I feel bad about this cus we vaguely know Joss-and a close female friend (a comedian) is also a friend of his. He visited this attractive comedian several times, and was never anything but polite & solutions of her career. I figured he would hit on her-but he didn’t at all. I’d say his wife knew this was happening all along. It’s absurd to think she didn’t. Don’t be so fast to judge. Everyone I know whose worked with him or knows him had nothing but good things to say. Just saying.

  11. Selene81 says

    Who was he cheating with? Remember the first Avengers movie, that girl in the diner that he kept focusing on for no reason, giving her all this unnecessary screen time? Her name is Ashley Johnson. An article that came out when the movie was released discusses how Whedon first cast her in his show Dollhouse in 2009, and how she will next be starring in his remake of Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing” shot entirely in Whedon’s own home. Lots of opportunity for sexy time there , methinks??

  12. aaathea says

    Actresses: Acker/Dushku/Glau
    I doubt smg slept with him, as record said that she didnt get the part of Buffy right away but went thru several tests given by in the audition pool. They only gave her the part when she told them she gave up auditioning for Buffy and she’d take Cordy.

    Cheaters can still be feminist, IMO. As to JW, his idea of female empowerment is to see a woman going thru abused and transformed her into “dominatrix” which is later on worshipped by guys who have inferior…

    • aaathea says

      And additional info about smg/joss, she said that joss screamed at her every time she questioned some plots in btvs.

      They disagreed a lot, that’s why joss approved the idea of buffy being “out-of-control” sex addict on S6 and gave the spotlights to other characters like willow and spike.That’s why Buffy as a char has never been the same compared to early season. She’s strong but detached to her friends. Spike who abused her became her savior.

      JW’s stories speaks for themselves about…

    • aaagspr says

      Thanks for posting these! Very interesting and address some questions I’d always wondered about.

  13. northernlight says

    Can a man cheat on his wife, sleep with his female employees, and still be a feminist?
    >>If you define feminism as advocating equal legal rights for women, sure. But if you go beyond that, as Whedon always has when discussing feminism (“It applies to the way [men] treat the women they work with and they live with and they see on the street”), then no. Obviously not.

  14. cally2 says

    I’ve always wondered if something like this is why Rebecca Gayheart got replaced as Inara on Firefly. “Lacked chemistry with the cast” always seemed like such a euphemism.

  15. Holivexer says

    I don’t really care who he cheated with, but this whole story is eerily similar to that episode of Girls that aired last spring where Hannah confronts a male writer she idolized over his habit of sleeping with young coeds on his college tour.

  16. prettybird025 says

    Josh Whedon SAYS he’s a “feminist”, while every thing he DOES probes he’s a sexist ****. I hate him and AoU was the worst thing ever. I can’t belive he’s gonna direct my baby Babs.

  17. anyanka2 says

    My guesses would be Amy Acker, Alyson Hannigan, Felicia Day or Eliza Dushku. All of them have worked with him on multiple projects.

    His feminism has been problematic for a while. The female characters in Dollhouse and Black Widow in his two Avengers movies are weaker characters than the women in the first couple seasons of Buffy.

    I don’t think it’s Sarah Michelle Gellar, because she’s done nothing else with him since Buffy.

  18. headyeuphoria says

    He’s not a feminist or an ally. At the end of the day he was sleeping with women/young naive girls looking to make it whom he was holding a position of power over. Their careers could be made or ended on staying in his good graces. It’s creepy and just plain wrong.

  21. TruveyTaylor says

    What does being a male Feminist have to do with having a sexual appetite for women? So only men who have been castrated are allowed to consider themselves Feminist?

  22. Jillianne6 says

    There is no civility in this conversation. It has been the Nerd War I hoped would never come, yet, here we are. I have so many guesses as to who the ladies were. My take is that he was more of a Parker Abrams than a Xander Harris when it came down to it. He used his position to get laid and he repeatedly did it. Is he a feminist? Does it matter at this point? I don’t know. I know he did a * thing. I don’t think it will make me stop watching his work. It’s not like he is Tom Cruise.

  23. SpartanApple says

    Can a man cheat on his wife, sleep with his female employees, and still be a feminist? Why or why not?

    First, no. Feminism is for females only and he isn’t a female therefore he can’t be a feminist. He can be an ally, but he doesn’t even seem to be that.

    Anyone even remotely claiming to be a feminist should respect women. What he did shows zero respect.

  24. gossipzillaisback says

    Actresses with whom he had affairs: no clue

    [Optional] Can a man…
    Yes. I do not see how cheating on his wife makes him less of a feminist… it’s not like he was forcing her to stay home. Feminism is about empowering women to attain gender equality – none of the behaviors described in the article seem to go against this. The whole “taking away my rights…” paragraph is just ridiculous. If this is the best twist his wife has to make him look bad, she’s in bad shape.

    • gossipzillaisback says

      Let me add that his excuses about trying to fulfill all the roles that society expected him to are equally as eye-rolling as his wife’s twist of the story.

    • kellyp says

      So she’s not a human being who deserves to make fully informed choices? Maybe she didn’t want a one way open marriage

    • jbj2016 says

      The faux-feminist aspect comes from him touting gender-equality, but ultimately him seeing women as people there to service him and his needs (both physically and intellectually). He used women to feel better about himself without consideration of whether they would feel betrayed or used. Moreover, the power dynamic of pursuing actresses that work for him, casts shadows over the careers women who didn’t ever do anything with him.

  25. Pierre Latin says

    CHARISMA CARPENTER, MICHELLE GELLAR, ALL OF ACTRESSESES OF BUFFY

    AND ELIZA DUSHKU.

    Optional: NO. JOSS WHEDON IS A LOSER AND A LIAR.

  29. CatBallou says

    Hmmm – not sure on the actresses.

    But yeah, I think you can be a feminist and a lying sack of garbage at the same time. Just because you believe in equal rights for women doesn’t mean you may not be a liar …. unfortunately.

  30. I Am PunkA says

    Charisma Carpenter, Emma Caulfield, Julie Benz

    Yes, he can be a horndog and be a feminist. He was cheating on a woman, with a woman. Takes 2 to tango. So he might have been a pig to his wife, he can still be for women;s issues ( See Clinton, Bill).

  31. delray74 says

    It’s Hollywood right. They’re all sleeping around. Anyway.

    To answer your question a real man maintains control over his sex organ and takes care of his family. A creeping crawling cockroach lives life through his penis thinking that’s all that matters.

  32. little leigh says

    One of the women has to beCharisma Carpenter. Eliza Dushku and Amy Ackerman. I don’t think SMG or Alyson Hannigan would have gone there.

  33. LC1216 says

    I personally don’t see what feminism has anything to do with him being a cheater. There are plenty of female feminists out there who cheat on their husbands or girlfriends. If Whedon was gay and liked men and cheated on his husband with other men, would that make him any less of a feminist too? I personally think it just makes him a selfish, lying cheater who got too close and intimate with the female cast members.

    • aaaApril says

      Well given how these affairs came about (he was in a position of power over these actresses who he admits were needy according to the article) yeah, I can see why people would be saying hes a hypocrite.

  35. goodgossip says

    actresses: Sarah Michelle Gellar and Eliza Dushku.

    If you are a serial cheater, don’t get married! Stay single and do whatever you want. But to cheat on your S.O. It’s terrible and depressing.

  36. Skatch says

    Actresses with whom he had affairs:
    Rumours I’d heard years ago were Summer Glau and Amy Acker.

    [Optional] Can a man cheat on his wife, sleep with his female employees, and still be a feminist?
    Yes.

  37. mona lisas and mad hatters says

    Can a man cheat on his wife,sleep with his female employees,and still be a feminist?

    Absolutely NOT. To be a genuine feminist, one must believe and act upon championing the cause of social equality for women in a patriarchal society.

    To bold-faced lie to his wife for years, while cheating with subordinate female employees, clearly demonstrates his male dominance behavior both at home and work.

    He has NO “RESPECT” -which is the foundation of ALL social decency, not just feminism.

    • katekatekate says

      Nah. That’s ridiculous.

      “To be a genuine feminist, one must believe and act upon championing the cause of social equality for women in a patriarchal society.”

      But I thought feminists liked to throw it in people’s faces that being a feminist means being for the equality of the sexes, mmm?

      You can think men and women are equal and should have equal rights AND also cheat. The two have nothing to do with each other.

  38. amagod121 says

    I don’t know about a man being a feminist or not but unless both parties agree otherwise, he darned well should keep that p*cker out of anyone’s anything, to prevent the SO from getting a potentially deadly S T D or virus. Anything else IS hypocrisy, both to feminism and your marriage vows. And the health and well-being of your SO.

  39. aaaSeeK says

    Not sure about his affair partners – all of them?

    Cheating really has nothing to do with feminism one way or another, so yes, of course he can.

  40. KCeagle says

    Whoops…BTW, I believe Joss was banging Charisma Carpenter and Amy Acker.
    He seems to have helped Acker’s career, but reportedly was a raging bully to Carpenter during their time shooting Angel. Ewww, he’s not exactly the most handsome Hollywood bigshot to ever come along and use his power to lay his co-workers. What would his fem rights Mom think of her baby boy after these revelations?

  41. KCeagle says

    Wow! I always kinda thought Whedon was a lying hypocritical POS, and now his dirty laundry is going through the rinse cycle..lol.
    Be a man-ho or whatever freak flag one wants to fly, but please spare us the PR spin and/or actually believing your own BS. Hope he’ll just STFU and make quality film projects. Can’t wait for Batgirl!

    • kellyp says

      Yes they do because they were participants in the abuse of another women. I do not think abusers are feminists.
      To cheat on someone you have to view them as less than human, unworthy of agency that you gift to yourself.
      Infidelity is the emotional abuse abusers inflict when they are too chicken * to hit you physically.

    • Holivexer says

      Probably not in this case. It sounds like there very well could have been an imbalance of power in those ‘relationships’ that he used to his advantage. We all know some of the choices that some of these young actresses in Hollywood have been presented under the guise of furthering their career. It’s highly likely that the women involved in this case felt pressured into the affair.

  43. colfaxcarol says

    Define feminism. In the traditional academic meaning, monogamy is not required, nor encouraged. Family values, like marriage, are not encouraged. Do the reading. Beware the man who calls himself a “feminist.” It might just mean he doesn’t want to work, shirks responsibility, is immature, will cheat, and stick you with the bills. Like this “man,” he might blame the culture or tell you that you’re insecure. He’s controlling and manipulative. It’s just a different head game. Watch…

    • missmissy says

      Wow! I completely disagree. There are various definitions and schools of thought in academic feminism. I know many male feminists who are nothing like you describe. One can be “pro women’s interests” and not manipulative or abusive (economically, physically, or emotionally). For many it is simply a given… when women and children economically thrive, so do men (single, married, monogamous or not).

      On this I agree… not sure that not being monogamous means one can’t be feminist.

    • framemegirl says

      Anyhow a men of authority and power sleeping around with his subordinates and i assume including some type of casting couch is far from a feminist.

    • AtomicQueen says

      I don’t believe any man can be a feminist. He can be an ally, sure, but not a feminist. This always happens, men know how to walk the walk but then they start talking over women and mansplaining. Women don’t need that shit…