50 Shades of Jian Ghomeshi as He Lauches $50M Lawsuit Against the CBC Over Firing by Jamie Gilcig

jg2CFN – I love listening to Q with host Jian Ghomeshi.  I have had a long time love affair with CBC radio since I worked in the Arctic when I was young.

There’s something about CBC radio that has always been special which is why I’m personally saddened yet at the same time pulling up some popcorn to watch this whopper unfold, or should I write, disrobe?

Social media is blazing with the buzz of first Mr. Ghomeshi leaving the CBC on leave and now being fired.

Jian posted a long explanation today on Facebook.

Jian Ghomeshi

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. I am in deep personal pain and worried about my mom. And now my world has been rocked by so much more.

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. 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. I have conducted major interviews, supported Canadian talent, and spoken out loudly in my audio essays about ideas, issues, and my love for this country. All of that is available for anyone to hear or watch. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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. She encouraged our role-play and often was the initiator. We joked about our relations being like a mild form of Fifty Shades of Grey or a story from Lynn Coady’s Giller-Prize winning book last year. I don’t wish to get into any more detail because it is truly not anyone’s business what two consenting adults do. I have never discussed my private life before. Sexual preferences are a human right.

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.

It came to light that a woman had begun anonymously reaching out to people that I had dated (via Facebook) 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 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.

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). 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 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.

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 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.

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 have loved the CBC. The Q team are the best group of people in the land. My colleagues and producers and on-air talent at the CBC are unparalleled in being some of the best in the business. I have always tried to be a good soldier and do a good job for my country. I am still in shock. But I am telling this story to you so the truth is heard. And to bring an end to the nightmare.

Of course this is just Jian’s side of the story and he has a very powerful team working with him.   My hunch is that he wants his job back.  I don’t blame him either.   This is going to cost the CBC an awful lot of money at the end of the day and when it comes down to it if Jian hasn’t broken the law why is this an issue?

If he likes to have anal sex with young vixens while pulling their hair and forcing them to call him Stephen Harper isn’t it his business?   Have we lost the right to privacy in our own lives and bedrooms?  Recently we’ve seen a spate of pro athletes suspended because of personal issues; most that they have not been convicted of.  We saw a NFL owner lose his team over a conversation that occurred in the privacy of his own home.

Of course the CBC will never tell their side of the story.   At least not all of it.  I don’t even think this case will ever make a court house.  Either Ghomeshi gets his job back and has Hugh Grant on as his first guest or he gets a big fat pay cheque; but at the end of the day Canada loses because Jian was very very good at what he does.

And in the end shouldn’t that be all that matters in our professional lives?

What is this world coming to?

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13 Comments

  1. Pretty sure he’s been railroaded because of the interview with Justin Trudeau last week.

  2. He’ll get his job back if the CBC knows what’s good for them.

  3. Such a great interviewer…have him back…”no business in the bedrooms of…….” Yada Yada

  4. Let’s put the facts together:
    Interview with Trudeau on October 22nd where Harper is painted as an idiot who only knows how to win elections based on a smear campaigns and who cuts off funding whenever it suits him (including threats to tank CBC funding further)
    CBC Boss Hubert Lacroix is a Harper appointee
    I am speculating? Does not sound like it based on the facts.

  5. Couldn’t agree more Kevin. The Harper Cons want the CBC gone, so naturally they appoint the people who will carry out their wishes.

  6. Author

    And no matter who wins in this clash the CBC will be hurt.

  7. From what this individual reports online he was fired primarily for having his private life become public in a manner which would compromise not only his own responsibilities to his employer but also the responsibilities that his employer has to the greater public. Whether the sex was consensual or not is not a deciding factor. The deciding factor is the loss of potential effectiveness as a host coupled with the likely loss of sponsorship from advertisers. In short his personal preferences cost him his job, akin to shooting himself in the foot. CBC made the only practical decision available as a result of Jian’s personal choices. Not a case of one party or another being right or wrong but rather about two parties having to respect consequences of actions.

  8. I agree David, in that he may have left himself open to blackmail etc. Something like the Mayor of Toronto hanging out and smoking crack with gangsters. Except in Ghomeshi’s case, there was no crime involved. As far as losing sponsors goes, CBC radio has no sponsors to lose.

  9. An older rich powerful man punches or chokes three young women that started out as fans
    The Supreme court has already said you can’t consent to a beating.
    British Broadcasting has been racked for hiding the misdeed of its child molesting radio people
    Two young women went thru hell recently after accusing two Toronto doctors of drugging and rape.
    These ladies were “raped” by the lawyers in court
    This is probably just the tip of the iceberg with Jian

  10. My tip of the iceberg is sadly coming true as I believe Kevin Donovan of Toronto Star one of Canada’s best investigative reporters wouldn’t write the article without abundant proof
    Now one brave lady has come out of the shadows..
    DeCoutere, who plays Lucy on Trailer Park Boys, recalls an incident in 2003 when she alleges Ghomeshi, without warning or consent, choked her to the point she could not breathe and then slapped her hard three times on the side of her head.

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