Whoopi Goldberg has branded Rachel Bilson “mad” and insisted it was “very odd” of the actress to admit she’d find it “weird” if a man in his 40s had only had four sexual partners.
The former “O.C.” star caused a stir with the comments on her “Broad Ideas” podcast earlier this week, but admitted she sounded “so judgmental,” and now The Color Purple actress has hit out and admitted she doesn’t “understand” why it would be a subject of concern.
“If it’s really low, at this day and age, you’d be like, ‘It’s a little weird.’ This is going to sound so judgmental, but if a dude’s, like, in his 40s and he’s, like, slept with, like, four women. But it all depends. Maybe he’s been in, like, decade[-long] relationships. It’s not fair for me to say either way,” Bilson said on her podcast.
“I’m sorry, I think it’s very odd that you’re concerned that he’s had sexual partners — any sexual partners. Why is it your business? Listen, men, traditionally, were taught to have many sexual partners. That’s how it was. Men could go and do whatever they wanted to do, and women were not supposed to. Now that has been shifting, and young women have been b—-ing about, you know, ‘Why are you telling me what I should be [doing?] Now, it’s happening, and you’re mad. I don’t understand,” Goldberg said on “The View.”
Bilson admitted she was “concerned” by the Sister Act star’s comments.
“I want to say that I’ve been a fan of Whoopi’s for a very long time, so when I saw the tagline that she criticized something I said, I of course was concerned. We make it a very safe, open place to discuss anything, and we were just talking. I have the power to edit our podcast, and I chose to keep the conversation as a whole in, because a lot of the time in life, you say something, and maybe you have a minute and you reflect on it,” Bilson told Entertainment Weekly magazine.
The 42-year-old actress insisted she doesn’t actually believe the “flippant comment” she made during the discussion on her podcast.
“The point I get across is that it doesn’t matter, and maybe in the past I would’ve looked at it [judgmentally], but I wouldn’t do that anymore. I made it clear that I don’t want to sound judgmental, it was important that that point get across, not what I said initially. It was a flippant comment that I was just talking with friends, and then I retracted it, because even talking about it now, I’m like, I don’t actually believe that. That’s why I think it’s important to stand up for it and clarify,” Bilson added.
