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LOS ANGELES — The ex-wife of director Joss Whedon writes in a scathing essay that the filmmaker known for holding up feminist ideals “is not who he pretends to be.”

Kai Cole writes in The Wrapthat Whedon had numerous affairs during their 16-year marriage. She says Whedon used his marriage as a shield, “so no one would question his relationships with other women or scrutinize his writing as anything other than feminist.”

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Cole says she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after Whedon confessed the infidelities. Cole writes:

“On the set of ‘Buffy,’ Joss decided to have his first secret affair. Fifteen years later, when he was done with our marriage and finally ready to tell the truth, he wrote me, ‘When I was running “Buffy,” I was surrounded by beautiful, needy, aggressive young women. It felt like I had a disease, like something from a Greek myth. Suddenly I am a powerful producer and the world is laid out at my feet and I can’t touch it.” But he did touch it. He said he understood, “I would have to lie — or conceal some part of the truth — for the rest of my life,’ but he did it anyway, hoping that first affair, ‘would be ENOUGH, that THEN we could move on and outlast it.’ “

A representative for Whedon tells The Wrap that Cole’s “account includes inaccuracies and misrepresentations,” but adds that Whedon isn’t commenting “out of concern for his children and out of respect for his ex-wife.”

Whedon is best known for creating the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and directing The Avengers and its 2015 sequel.

Users took to Twitter to remind people that even men who advocate for women’s rights and feature strong women in their works can be “trash.”