Josh Duhamel Defends Katherine Heigl Against Bad Rap

During an appearance on the Chicks in the Office podcast, Josh was asked about the costar he had the most chemistry with, even if they weren’t the best kisser.

“I love all the girls I’ve worked with,” Josh responded to completely avoid answering.

And although Josh declined to actually answer the question, he did mention Katherine, whom he starred alongside in 2010’s Life as We Know It and 2011’s New Year’s Eve.

“Katie Heigl gets a bad rap but she’s awesome,” Josh said. “She’s great.”

He continued, “She probably said some things that she wishes she could’ve taken back. But my experience…my on or offscreen [experience] with her was awesome.”

While he didn’t get into specifics about her “bad rap,” he was seemingly referencing Katherine’s label in Hollywood that she’s difficult to work with.

Going back to the early 2000s, Katherine earned a less-than-glowing reputation after calling her film Knocked Up “sexist” and then later withdrawing her name from Emmys consideration because she thought her material on Grey’s Anatomy that season didn’t “warrant” it.

Katherine later opened up about how the intense backlash from the public ended up affecting her mental health.

“I may have said a couple of things you didn’t like, but then that escalated to ‘she’s ungrateful,’ then that escalated to ‘she’s difficult,’ and that escalated to ‘she’s unprofessional,'” she said.

Katherine continued, “What is your definition of difficult? Somebody with an opinion that you don’t like?”

She added that the more she apologized, the more it seemed like she had “done something horribly wrong” and eventually her mental health spiraled so badly she needed to seek help.

“I asked my mom and my husband to find me somewhere to go that could help me because I felt like I would rather be dead,” she said. “I didn’t realize how much anxiety I was living with until I got so bad that I had to really seek help.”