Actor Blake Jenner opened up about a previous “toxic relationship” in a lengthy Instagram post published Thursday night. Jenner appeared to be referencing his brief marriage to Supergirl actress Melissa Benoist, who revealed she is a “survivor of domestic abuse” in November 2019. The 28-year-old Jenner took “full responsibility and accountability” for the “hurt” he inflicted during the relationship, but he also claimed there was “emotional and physical abuse inflicted from both ends.”
At the start of his six-page Instagram note, Jenner said he was thinking about how to respond to the “personal situation made public in late 2019.” In that time, he “reflected” on a period of his life “previously kept in the darkness out of shame and fear,” but he decided it had to be addressed “not only publicly, but also privately with the individual directly affected and with myself.” Jenner never named Benoist, to whom he was married to from 2015 to 2017, in the post.
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Jenner said the two “fell in love” when he was 20. He believes that the marriage was a “potential for redemption of sorts” for both of them. He claimed he could not leave the marriage “when someone I loved was asking me to stay.” The relationship had a “foundation rooted in co-dependency, which had dire consequences. We were both young and left so much of our brokeness to fester for too long.”
Jenner took responsibility for the pain he inflicted on his “past partner.” He detailed an incident where he hit his partner with a phone, leaving her eye swollen shut. “If I could do anything to take it back, I would,” he wrote. “However, as hard as it has been to come to terms with it and as hard as it is for me to even describe that moment in detail now, whatever the intention may have been, I am responsible for the pain that I caused her in that moment and beyond. And it is something I am still working on forgiving myself for.”
Next, Jenner claimed the “emotional and physical abuse” was “inflicted from both ends.” The two saw a therapist but they always found “ourselves stuck in this toxic cycle that our relationship became.” Jenner said he thought “long and hard” about whether he should speak about this publicly, and he came to the conclusion that he should.
The What/If actor detailed some specific abuse allegations, claiming he was “made to feel guilty” for working because he would receive phone calls from his former partyer “threatening to self-harm our of depression and a deep-seated fear of abandonment.” He was also “discouraged from and threatened not to develop relationships with and take photos” with his female co-stars as events. At the end of his statement, Jenner apologized to his former partner.
Benoist opened up about her experience with domestic abuse in November 2019. She is now married to her Supergirl co-star Chris Wood. On Sept. 26, the couple announced the birth of their first child, Huxley Robert Wood.
