Ian Somerhalder isn't looking like the best husband following an admission that he threw out his wife Nikki Reed's birth control pills so that they could have a baby. While "The Vampire Diaries" actor might have revealed this in jest, he’s now drawing flak from netizens who did not like what he did.
The couple sat down with Dr. Elliot Berlin in a candid podcast interview on Informed Pregnancy and they shared the story of how they decided to start a family. It appeared as though Ian Somerhalder made the sole decision when he threw out her birth control pills.
"Unbeknownst to poor Nikki, she didn't realize that I was going to go in her purse and take out her birth control," Ian Somerhalder said. "By the way, it was the beginning of the pack, so I had to pop all those suckers out."
“The Vampire Diaries” actor also revealed that his wife freaked out when he flushed her contraception down the toilet. He even had a friend record the incident on videotape. The couple was vacationing in Spain with some friends when the whole thing happened.
Not ready to be a mom?
From what the couple shared, Ian Somerhalder seemingly appeared as more eager to have children than Nikki Reed in the beginning of their relationship. Two months into dating, the actor was openly talking babies with his then-future wife and Reed confessed that she did not know at that time if she would like to be a mom.
She also said her husband was so sure about his plans for the future.
But some netizens said that what the former star of "The Vampire Diaries" did when he messed with her birth control pills has a term: reproductive coercion. The behavior is described as an intention to "maintain power and control in a relationship related to reproductive health," as per the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
Nikki Reed lashes out
Following the criticisms and the judgments on social media, Nikki Reed responded about the issue on Twitter. She posted a series of messages to qualify that women's rights matter to her and that others interpreted what was supposed to be a funny interview of a married couple differently.
Dear writer. Here's my note to you on irresponsible journalism. pic.twitter.com/0P7wVa2IBm
— Nikki Reed (@NikkiReed_I_Am) September 22, 2017
Nikki Reed alluded quotes to the story that ran on Cosmopolitan.
The actress claimed the publication twisted what they said in the podcast for gossip.
Ian Somerhalder and Nikki Reed welcomed their first child, a daughter named Bodhi Soleil, in August. The couple married in April 2015 after a whirlwind engagement.