I personally don’t believe Gillian’s toxic relationship quote was for David but I can’t blame those who do. There are a lot of people who became part of the fandom during Kimmel & Paley but there are those who were here during ’98 and the dark times so how can I blame them for believing what they believe when in 2005 Gillian herself compared her working time with D as an abusive marriage? Things have changed since then but the first impression is hard to beat and memory is very powerful.

She said “forced” marriage, not “abusive” if I remember correctly. And I can understand too those who think their relationship was toxic, because it probably was somehow, at some point, even if I think the word “toxic” isn’t the most appropriate to describe what happened between them. What I don’t understand is those who think their relationship is toxic, after everything they said about and to each other in the recent few years. 

I don’t understand either those who think he’s the one she’s talking about in the press and during interviews and in her book. It’s just intellectual laziness to think this way, in my opinion. As if Gillian doesn’t have relationships with people we don’t know, as if everything negative in her life has to be about David, as if she would do that to him, dragging him and their relationship for the purpose of the promotion of her book. 

They’ve both moved on, they forgave each other and they love each other now, but it seems like some of their fans are hopelessly stuck in the past forever and it’s sad for them. 

But you know what, if people don’t stop with this nonsense, it’ll end up in the press sooner or later, with a headline such as “Gillian Anderson opens up about her toxic relationship with co-star David Duchovny”. That’s something the DailyMail would be thrilled to publish. So let’s just be better than that and realize that whatever happened between them in the 90s, it’s over now. Let’s realize that never Gillian would publicly talk about David with those words today. Let’s be smarter and understand that not a single publicist on Earth would have allowed that anyway.