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(The first five paragraphs are basically about this blog and the provenance of this post/blog, so scroll right down to the sixth paragraph if you don’t really care to read about me and so on but rather about Jian’s self defense. Jian’s words, naturally, are in BOLD.)
Well, today Jian seems to have made me do something I said I’d never do again, write a post about his show. Or used-to-be show, I guess. I wrote a post about Q in late 2011, and then another in 2012. At that time, I said I was done with commenting on the show, and I was, except that, eventually, in late 2013, I did write a post in which I responded to a few of the most common criticisms I received over my two posts. If you look at my blog, you see that, essentially, I just let people comment and generally don’t answer back. If people want to say something, they can, and unless the content is outright unacceptable (e.g. “lemon meringue causes blindness”), I let it stand, expletives and all. I think I’ve only ever deleted one comment, after a pause and for a reason similar to that suggested by the example just given above.
Dear everyone,
I am writing today because I want you to be the first to know some news.
This has been the hardest time of my life. I am reeling from the loss of my father.
Today, I was fired from the CBC.
For almost 8 years I have been the host of a show I co-created on CBC called Q.
(“I co-created”—well, it’s nice to know he had a hand in his own show. I suppose he didn’t “co-create” Play.) It has been my pride and joy. My fantastic team on Q are super-talented and have helped build something beautiful.I have always operated on the principle of doing my best to maintain a dignity and a commitment to openness and truth, both on and off the air.
(Uh, no, my friend, or you wouldn’t be here right now. In today’s world, it isn’t even six degrees of separation; it’s more like three. I’ve never met Jian in person, and as I think I said in an earlier post, I’d probably enjoy meeting and talking with him. But his celebrity enabled him; it made him bask and act as if he were untouchable. I heard his earlier band’s songs. I have a friend—yes, a young-ish novelist who lives near Toronto who freely noted Jian’s sparrowlike qualities when we were talking one night. I doubt that she has anything but the remotest regard for this chapter in Jian’s life, but she did note his advances. Or there’s the friend of mine who noted Jian basking on a visit to my fair city at a very popular bar with a couple of young women with whom, it’s probably quite safe to say, he was not on a last-name basis. They may have shared many things, that threesome, beyond their cab, but again, it is not too much to doubt that a “mutual” plane ride back to Torontowas one of them.Not many people reading this post would say that they had never been in a position of sexual dominance—physical, financial, maturity-wise, whatever—many are daily. I’m willing to buy Jian’s argument that his hookups knew what they were doing, but for him to pretend that there wasn’t a power imbalance based on his celebrity, and that he’s being unfairly maligned *because* he’s a celebrity just won’t wash. In his public pronouncements, he seems to conflate “desire” and “morality,” and that’s a conflation most people, even celebrities—and contrary to cliché—just don’t make.)
All of that is available for anyone to hear or watch (table of “feature chats” by nationality, anyone?). I have known, of course, that not everyone always agrees with my opinions or my style, but I’ve never been anything but honest. I have doggedly defended the CBC and embraced public broadcasting. This is a brand I’ve been honoured to help grow. (Again, I haven’t got much of a problem with this, but Jian had to imply that he was the one who revived a dead organization—one that has only been around for about, oh, twice as long as he has.)
All this has now changed.
Today I was fired from the company where I’ve been working for almost 14 years – stripped from my show, barred from the building and separated from my colleagues. I was given the choice to walk away quietly and to publicly suggest that this was my decision. But I am not going to do that. Because that would be untrue. Because I’ve been fired. And because I’ve done nothing wrong.
(Not “sure, I’ve made a few mistakes,” but “I’ve done NOTHING wrong.”)I’ve been fired from the CBC because of the risk of my private sex life being made public as a result of a campaign of false allegations pursued by a jilted ex girlfriend and a freelance writer.
(If this is really true, then I do feel bad for him; it can happen to anyone, and, yes, celebrities or people in positions of power and authority can be especially vulnerable. Still, little malignity is entirely motiveless. If his tormentors are self-interested, venal people, that should come out, as he says it will. I could be wrong, but I have a funny feeling he has more legal representation than they do.)As friends and family of mine, you are owed the truth.
I have commenced legal proceedings against the CBC, what’s important to me is that you know what happened and why.
Forgive me if what follows may be shocking to some.
I have always been interested in a variety of activities in the bedroom but I only participate in sexual practices that are mutually agreed upon, consensual, and exciting for both partners.
(Jian’s use of absolute language is again striking here. Who has ever always and only participated in sexual acts that are consensual and “exciting” for everyone? This only reveals a stunted, selfish, and dangerously self-exculpatory attitude towards sexual relationships.)About two years ago I started seeing a woman in her late 20s. Our relationship was affectionate, casual and passionate. We saw each other on and off over the period of a year and began engaging in adventurous forms of sex that included role-play, dominance and submission. We discussed our interests at length before engaging in rough sex (forms of BDSM). We talked about using safe words and regularly checked in with each other about our comfort levels.
Despite a strong connection between us it became clear to me that our on-and-off dating was unlikely to grow into a larger relationship and I ended things in the beginning of this year. She was upset by this and sent me messages indicating her disappointment that I would not commit to more, and her anger that I was seeing others.
After this, in the early spring there began a campaign of harassment, vengeance and demonization against me that would lead to months of anxiety.
(If what Jian says is true, I agree that this is awful. “Campaign” makes it sounds as if the whole world knew, which it obviously didn’t, but whatever.)It came to light that a woman had begun anonymously reaching out to people that I had dated (via Facebook
people I’d dated via Facebook? Jian, you gotta quit dating so many people via Facebook ;). Just another example of this great literary avatar kind of, just, like, not paying attention to what he was writing) to tell them she had been a victim of abusive relations with me. In other words, someone was reframing what had been an ongoing consensual relationship as something nefarious. I learned – through one of my friends who got in contact with this person – that someone had rifled through my phone on one occasion and taken down the names of any woman I had seemed to have been dating in recent years. This person had begun methodically contacting them to try to build a story against me. Increasingly, female friends and ex-girlfriends of mine told me about these attempts to smear me.Someone also began colluding with a freelance writer who was known not to be a fan of mine and, together, they set out to try to find corroborators to build a case to defame me. She found some sympathetic ears by painting herself as a victim and turned this into a campaign. The writer boldly started contacting my friends, acquaintances and even work colleagues – all of whom came to me to tell me this was happening and all of whom recognized it as a trumped up way to attack me and undermine my reputation. Everyone contacted would ask the same question, if I had engaged in non-consensual behavior why was the place to address this the media?
The writer tried to peddle the story and, at one point, a major Canadian media publication did due diligence but never printed a story. One assumes
(if they “assumed,” then how do you know they did “due diligence”?) they recognized these attempts to recast my sexual behaviour were fabrications. Still, the spectre of mud being flung onto the Internet where online outrage can demonize someone before facts can refute false allegations has been what I’ve had to live with. (It’s true that the internet is a nasty place—look at the swearing comments I’ve gotten from Jian’s supporters—but that’s one more reason, as a publicly-paid person, to be extra-vigilant about your public and private behaviour. Besides, as Jian would know if he’d hosted a radio show lately, the balance has been tipping against the internet trolls for a long time; if I get 20 hits on this blog post, 18 will be from Jian’s lawyers. Think I’m imagining things? Read Jian, below, about “piling on.”Oh and, Jian, if you call your next book Spectre of Mud, I promise to pre-order.
And this leads us to today and this moment. I’ve lived with the threat that this stuff would be thrown out there to defame me. And I would sue. But it would do the reputational damage to me it was intended to do (the ex has even tried to contact me to say that she now wishes to refute any of these categorically untrue allegations (then get her to call the CBC and get your job back). But with me bringing it to light, in the coming days you will prospectively hear about how I engage in all kinds of unsavoury aggressive acts in the bedroom. And the implication may be made that this happens non-consensually. And that will be a lie. But it will be salacious gossip (the gossip monger, mongered?) in a world driven by a hunger for “scandal”. And there will be those who choose to believe it and to hate me or to laugh at me. And there will be an attempt to pile on. And there will be the claim that there are a few women involved (those who colluded with my ex) in an attempt to show a “pattern of behaviour”. And it will be based in lies but damage will be done. But I am telling you this story in the hopes that the truth will, finally, conquer all. (Jeesh Jian, if you are already envisioning and speaking of “pattern of behaviour” accusations, I think you’re cooked. Just sayin.’)
I have been open with the CBC about this since these categorically untrue allegations ramped up. I have never believed it was anyone’s business what I do in my private affairs but I wanted my bosses to be aware that this attempt to smear me was out there. CBC has been part of the team of friends and lawyers assembled to deal with this for months. On Thursday I voluntarily showed evidence (you taped every session?! Studio QRSTUV?) that everything I have done has been consensual. I did this in good faith and because I know, as I have always known, that I have nothing to hide. This when the CBC decided to fire me.
CBC execs confirmed that the information provided showed that there was consent. In fact, they later said to me and my team that there is no question in their minds that there has always been consent. They said they’re not concerned about the legal side. But then they said that this type of sexual behavior was unbecoming of a prominent host on the CBC. They said that I was being dismissed for “the risk of the perception that may come from a story that could come out.” To recap, I am being fired in my prime from the show I love and built and threw myself into for years because of what I do in my private life.
Let me be the first to say that my tastes in the bedroom may not be palatable to some folks. They may be strange, enticing, weird, normal, or outright offensive to others. We all have our secret life. But that is my private life. That is my personal life. And no one, and certainly no employer, should have dominion over what people do consensually in their private life. (Agreed, but as in the anecdotes I’ve cited, and as in Jian’s own post we’re reading here, he seems not to realize how the public blends into the private and vice-versa. He seems to want to have one set of rules for himself, and another set for others. It is remarkable that he would “chat” with featured artists almost every day and not realize something as basic and fundamental as the fact that “private” and “public” lives are not categorically divisible.
And so, with no formal allegations, no formal complaints, no complaints, not one, to the HR department at the CBC (they told us they’d done a thorough check and were satisfied), and no charges, I have lost my job based on a campaign of vengeance. Two weeks after the death of my beautiful father I have been fired from the CBC because of what I do in my private life.
I guess that’s for another post. A recent poster to this blog wrote to Jian that his “15 minutes of fame were up.” Oh, I don’t think so. In the meantime, and surely if it’s Jian’s way, this is very definitely to be continued. . .
–zr
{{4 years, 4 posts on this blog.
(I don’t blame you for getting bored, but I’ve as much a right and a responsibility as anyone to be held to complete account for what I have written.)
The first post, the one that EVERYONE read:
The Ever-Incredibly Depressing Jian Ghomeshi of CBC’s Q — 17/09/2011
The next and final post, that a few read.
The Ever-Incredibly Depressing Jian Ghomeshi of CBC’s Q — redux 02/03/2012
3rd post (that a few more read):
My decision to at last address some of the so many comments I got about my *2* Ghomeshi posts (my antique internet attitude has always been that you can respond and say whatever you want to say, and I won’t editorialize. However, after many comments, I decided to take up a few of the most common ones).
The ever-incredibly depressing Jian Ghomeshi treedux — 11/02/2013
The recent post, that a few have read, now that he’s really famous (and a post that’s already starting to look really antique, like the once-powerful “Copps-May-Shelaghlah Swoonferit Theory of General Sexual Moral Infallibility”):
50 Shades of Jian Ghomeshi: Parsing Jian’s Infinite Self-Regard — 28/10/2014}}
Zorg Report: Zorg Report 2014-10-28 05:55:00
(Please read or scroll to the bottom to see the actual record of this thread.) 50 Shades of Jian Ghomeshi: Parsing Jian’s Infinite Self-Regard (The first five paragraphs are basically about this blog and the provenance of this post/blog, so scroll right down to the sixth paragraph if you don’t
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