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50 shades of ick: CBC host Jian Ghomeshi says he was fired for sex life

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How un-“Fifty Shades of Grey.”

A few years after that awful novel inspired stories about spiced-up sex lives and greater acceptance of consensual bedroom violence, a top Canadian public radio host has been fired, allegedly for being too wild in the bedroom.

That’s his version, anyway.

In a long, anguished Facebook post on Sunday, the CBC’s Jian Ghomeshi, 47, announced that he had been fired by his longtime network “because of what I do in my private life.”

Fans of public radio station KPCC are familiar with Ghomeshi and his nightly radio program “Q.” He is known for entertaining interviews with pop culture figures like Lena Dunham and Tom Petty.

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On Oct. 16, he was in Santa Monica to record a live version of his program at the Broad Stage. His guests included Zach Galifianakis, Sandra Oh, Martin Short and Bob Odenkirk. I was invited to participate in the show’s media panel, a regular feature. But the panel was canceled, I assume because producers were able to book so many great celebrity guests they decided they didn’t need any ink-stained wretches. You can listen to that show here.

In Ghomeshi’s Facebook version of his firing, he has been the target of a jilted lover 20 years his junior who wanted to ruin him by portraying their bedroom play as something nefarious and nonconsensual.

Ghomeshi wrote: “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…. 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.”

After he broke off the relationship, Ghomeshi wrote, the young woman, who has not been identified, began a campaign of harassment against him. In carefully vetted language (he has hired a top Canadian crisis PR firm), he said that “a woman” had been reaching out anonymously to other people he’d dated “to tell them she had been a victim of abusive relations with me.”

“Someone,” he wrote, “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.”

Ick. And double ick.

In a statement to reporters on Sunday, CBC officials said that they decided to fire Ghomeshi after “serious deliberation and careful consideration.” In a television report, CBC News reported that CBC officials had also said that “information had come to their attention that precluded a further relationship with Ghomeshi, but would not say what that information was.”

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Ghomeshi is planning to sue the CBC for $50 million, according to a statement put out by his attorney on Sunday. Ghomeshi will also ask for reinstatement.

On Facebook, he alleged that his bosses said his sexual behavior was “unbecoming of a prominent host on the CBC,” and that he was fired to avoid “the risk of the perception that may come from a story that could come out.”

So did the CBC fire Ghomeshi for a good reason, or because it did not want to embarrassed by a sex scandal? That’s unclear for now.

But I’ll tell you what, public figures: Put away those whips and chains.

That is today’s safe word.

I will never hurt you on Twitter: @robinabcarian

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