If you grew up in the 90s you probably saw movies like “No Retreat, No Surrender”, “Double Impact”, “Street Fighter”, etc and are a fan of the star in these blockbusters, Jean-Claude Van Damme. Van Damme is a household name all over the world and if you do not know who he is, you’re probably too young to be reading gossip. One would think that with all of his exposure and position in the world, someone like Van Damme would be more empathetic and open-minded.
But no, it turns out that your childhood hero is just as much of a sexist and a misogynist as the worst of us after he went on French TV and made some very inflammatory comments about same-sex relationships and women. Making an appearance on “On n’est pas couche” talk show on Saturday 30 June, the “Kickboxer” was challenged by his fellow panelist and  Gender Equality Minister Marlène Schiappa regarding his derogatory views on women after he made a comment implying that a woman’s place is in the kitchen. Also according to him, if men marry men and women marry women then they would be not one to give birth to newborn babies.
‘Men get married, women get married, dogs get married… Everybody is getting married and everybody is getting divorced,’ he said in an attempt to make light of the situation but not everyone was amused.  Schiappa expressed her disappointment in his quips and tried to make him see that people were out there getting killed because of their sexuality and it is no laughing matter. ‘I’m sorry, but this is not funny,’ she said. ‘This is the day of the Pride parade where people march to defend their rights… I find this shocking… There are people who are beaten and insulted because they are homosexual. We need to support them rather than mocking them, saying they are dogs,’ she added.
The famous actor tried to defend himself by saying he had a lot of friends who are gay and doesn’t have a problem with them but insisted that gay people cannot reproduce and that is a problem.  ‘I have a lot of friends who are gay… If they want to get married, that’s OK. But the question is, if all the boys marry each another and all the women marry each other, how are we going to have children?’