Joss Whedon Calls His Accusers Bad Actors And Denies Their Claims Against Him
Whedon has been accused of calling a pregnant woman fat, cheating on his ex-wife, and maintaining an "unprofessional and abusive" set.
Overnight, Vulture dropped a new interview with Joss Whedon, a one-time fixture of the pop culture landscape who has been accused of misogyny and toxic behaviour on the set of the Justice League re-shoots, and ongoing abuse of his considerable position of power and influence in the industry.
Kai Cole, his ex-wife, accused him of hypocrisy, and alleged that he had engaged in multiple affairs during their time together. Ray Fisher, who played Cyborg in Justice League, said that the director was responsible for “gross, abusive, unprofessional and completely unacceptable behaviour.”
Gal Gadot, another star of Justice League, claimed that he threatened her career. Charisma Carpenter, a star of Whedon’s hit show Buffy The Vampire Slayer, called the man’s behaviour “hostile and toxic” and noted an occasion during which he called her “fat” while she was pregnant.
Now, Whedon has addressed these accusations. It is the first time that he has spoken out in such a major way since news of his alleged behaviour began to hit the media cycle.
For a start, he dismisses Fisher’s accusations by casting doubts on the actor’s abilities. “We’re talking about a malevolent force,” Whedon says of Fisher. “We’re talking about a bad actor in both senses.”
As for Gadot’s accusations, Whedon claims that the issue came down to a misunderstanding, given that English is not the actress’ first language. “I don’t threaten people. Who does that?” He says in the piece. “English is not her first language, and I tend to be annoyingly flowery in my speech.”
Carpenter’s claims are similarly dismissed by Whedon. While acquiescing that he was “not mannerly,” he argued against her depiction of their relationship. “Most of my experiences with Charisma were delightful and charming. She struggled sometimes with her lines, but nobody could hit a punch line harder than her.”
As to the specific claim that he called her fat, Whedon disagrees. “I did not call her fat,” he says. “Of course I didn’t.”
Elsewhere in the piece, the writer confronts Whedon on the affairs that he had on the set of Buffy, and Whedon seemingly shows remorse — “I feel fucking terrible about them,” he says — but refuses to engage much further. He even goes so far as to say that he felt some degree of pressure to undertake the affairs, claiming to be “powerless” to resist. When the piece’s author, Lila Shapiro, laughs at that comment, Whedon seems perturbed. “I’m not actually joking,” he says.
The piece outlines further claims of Whedon’s behaviour. One memorable anecdote involves Whedon allegedly dressing down a scriptwriter on the TV show Firefly who he thought wasn’t up to par. Rather than talking to her separately, saving her embarrassment, he allegedly called a meeting and launched into 90 minutes of “mockery” involving a “fake slide projector.”
Elsewhere, a Justice League crew member claims that Whedon took the cast aside during the shoot, and told them that they were the rudest people he had ever interacted with.