Every time I turn around, I hear Whoopi Goldberg say something that seems like it’s remarkably anti-woman. This is a woman I’ve always looked up to. I’ve always thought she was a comic genius, with the most innovative and awesome name ever. I heard her speak at the March for Women’s Lives in Washington, DC in 2004 and thought she was very inspiring and charismatic in person. She seemed to be very much in favor of women’s rights. So why is she going around defending rapists and batterers?

When Roman Polanski was detained in Switzerland earlier this year, Goldberg—along with several other celebrities who seem to be okay with rape, drugging teenagers, and skipping out of the country rather than serving a jail sentence—expressed her outrage. She claimed that the thirteen-year-old girl was not raped at all. “I know it wasn’t rape-rape,” she said. “It was something else but I don’t believe it was rape-rape.”

When I read this statement, it turned me off Whoopi for the rest of my lifetime. Rape-rape? Really? I had no idea there was such a thing. Wow. So the next time a friend gets a drink spiked with Rohypnol and is raped by some predatory beast, I will just tell her it’s okay—Whoopi says it’s not rape-rape. Because this young girl was raped in this exact same manner; she was drugged by the “visionary” Polanski, completely unable to offer consent (although she remembers saying no when she was conscious). And let’s please not forget that she was also thirteen years old; even if she had consented, it would have been statutory rape—not to mention the gross advantage taken of a child by a man in his mid-life. The fact that anyone can defend such behavior is beyond me. Any other regular Joe Schmoe who might do this to a child would be condemned by anyone and everyone, I’m sure.

Now Goldberg is defending Mel “I’m Psycho” Gibson. Gibson, who has recently come under the spotlight as a hate-spewing, violent jerk (why am I not surprised?) again for talking to the mother of his child and partner like she’s a piece of garbage (worse, really; you can hear some of the things he said to her here, as well as some newer audio footage here; be warned that the tapes are extremely graphic and derogatory) and beating the crap out of her. According to Goldberg, Mel’s swell, and would never knock the teeth out of his companion—let alone while she was holding their baby. Goldberg claims that it’s Mel’s girlfriend herself who is the problem.

Wow, Whoopi, does your hatred toward women know no ends—or do you just really like supporting your misogynist, violent celebrity friends?