Shortly after "That 70's Show" star Danny Masterson was convicted of rape and sentenced
to 30 years to life in prison, his wife, Bijou Phillips filed for divorce.
While she'd seemed supportive of her husband while he was fighting to avoid facing justice,
there were some red flags in their relationship that might have hinted that they wouldn't last.
Bijou Phillips gained her party girl reputation after she was emancipated from her parents,
and she was just 14 years old when she began living on her own in New York City.
She told Paper in 2009,
"I got to do whatever I wanted.
I didn't have to do jack s---.
Then I said, 'I'm famous, but for what?
Being a psycho party brat!
Is that what I really want?'"
Around the time Phillips was 17, Masterson was also making regular appearances at clubs,
performing as DJ Donkey Punch.
Masterson told Paper that he and Phillips first met at a party when she was underage.
He said in an interview with the Columbus Dispatch,
"I've known Bijou since I was 18 and she was 14 or 15, so this relationship came on very naturally."
He also told Paper that he viewed Phillips as, quote, "the little crazy girl" before
they got together.
Phillips was in her 20s when she and Masterson connected on a deeper level during a celebrity
poker match, and it was apparently Masterson's lack of interest in her that made him seem
like a catch.
She recalled to Paper,
"Every guy at the table was flirting with me but Danny."
While they were dating, Phillips and Masterson both appeared in the 2007 rom-com "Spin,"
and they played love interests in the 2009 movie "The Bridge to Nowhere."
However, Masterson had no interest in being lovey-dovey with Phillips when the cameras
weren't rolling.
He told Paper,
"When I'm at work, I'm working and when she's at work, she still sort of wants to be boyfriend
and girlfriend.
I'm like, we can chat later.
I found myself being a bit rude to her.
I felt like an assh—."
After their early experiences working together, Phillips and Masterson reached the conclusion
that they couldn't interact with each other during scenes.
However, they became castmates again when they appeared in another 2009 release, "Made
for Each Other."
So, did they just awkwardly avoid speaking to each other on set?
Whatever the case, it seems as though their work relationship wasn't the healthiest.
Phillips and Masterson got engaged in 2009, and when they walked down the aisle two years
later, it was at a castle in Tipperary, Ireland.
However, the fairytale setting wasn't where they originally planned on getting hitched.
In what was perhaps a portent of things to come, a natural disaster prevented them from
saying "I do" in Iceland: the 2010 eruption of a volcano.
If the couple hadn't been forced to keep delaying their wedding, perhaps they would have been
able to tie the knot in their dream location.
Masterson told the Columbus Dispatch,
"We canceled four weddings because of work."
Masterson and Phillips' comments about their heavy workloads during that time period suggested
that they spent a great deal of time apart.
According to Masterson, he was such a workaholic that he would reach out to people he knew
in the entertainment industry to get their help slapping together a low-budget independent
film if he was unable to book other gigs.
He was also clearly unwilling to prioritize his wedding over work.
When Masterson introduced Phillips to one of his favorite hobbies, it didn't go well.
He told PR.com that he tried to offer her some advice on how to improve her swing while
they were playing golf, but she wasn't having it.
He recalled,
"She's like, 'Don't f---ing tell me how to hit the ball!!'"
According to Masterson, this attitude is why he could never direct Phillips in a movie.
He said,
"It would probably be weird if I told her to do something a certain way.
She's always like, 'Don't tell me what to do.'"
He admitted that they would probably end up fighting if they tried to work together in
this capacity because he would find it difficult to direct his wife in a manner that wouldn't
set her off.
He also confessed, quote, "I'm a bit of a control freak."
Phillips and Masterson had been together for four years when OK! asked Phillips about her
favorite vacation.
It turns out that it was not a romantic getaway with the man she was about to marry at the
time; instead, it was a long, solo trip to Cabo San Lucas.
She said,
"I sang at this jazz club periodically while I was there, and made a bunch of friends.
I swam in the ocean and read a ton of books.
It was a good three weeks of just doing stuff for me and it was awesome."
And from the sounds of it, Phillips may have hung out with her horses more than she did
with Masterson back when they were dating.
In a 2008 interview with the Los Angeles Times, she revealed that she spent a lot of her free
time out in the barn caring for her beloved pets.
She even had a bumper sticker that read, "My horse is more pampered than my boyfriend."
Phillips wasn't just rubbing all the affection her horses were getting in Masterson's face;
she was also making him suffer for it.
Masterson has animal allergies severe enough that Phillips' rigorous handwashing after
a barn visit wasn't always enough to prevent him from experiencing an allergic reaction.
He told Paper,
"She'll give me a hug and I'll start itching on my neck."
Phillips and Masterson both grew up in showbiz, so they had something in common when they
started dating.
However, their lifestyles were drastically different.
For one thing, Phillips was a vegan at the time.
She told Paper,
"I have horses and they don't eat meat.
I like that we have that in common.
I could feed them my sandwich and they'd be totally fine."
But Masterson may as well have been just as allergic to vegetables as he was to Phillips' horses.
She said,
"Danny eats meat.
He almost only eats meat."
And while Phillips had no interest in poker, Masterson was so passionate about the game
that he had his own poker parlor at home.
Phillips didn't seem to get Masterson's obsession with live music, either.
He said in a 2016 interview with Alternative Nation,
"My wife will say, 'How can you go see three of four concerts in a week?'"
According to his The Underground Bunker blog, a source told journalist Tony Ortega that
Danny Masterson is responsible for getting Bijou Phillips to convert to Scientology.
The insider said,
"She deserves a better life than what Scientology has given her."
Masterson and Phillips have both parroted the Church of Scientology's talking points
about mental health issues.
Masterson told Paper in 2015,
"You will not find a Scientologist who does not f---ing hate psychiatrists.
Because their solution for mental and spiritual problems is drugs."
So, what is the solution, according to Masterson?
"Scientology handles those things, those mental problems that people have.
It gets rid of them.
It gets rid of them by that person doing it for themselves."
Phillips shares Masterson's disdain for psychiatry and psychology.
In her 2009 Paper interview, she said,
"My grandparents didn't take any pills and they were fine.
Just buck up and get over it.
Stop being such a f---ing pansy."
In the 2009 movie "Made for Each Other," Phillips found herself in the awkward position of playing
the wife of her then-fiancé's brother, "Malcolm in the Middle" star Christopher Masterson.
Adding to the weirdness was the fact that Danny also made an appearance in the movie.
Sam Hamadeh, one of the movie's associate producers, did nothing to diminish the "ick"
factor when he spoke to Page Six about the lack of awkwardness between Phillips and Christopher
in the film, saying
"They definitely have a lot of sexual chemistry on screen.
It made for some interesting moments on set when Danny had to watch his brother and fiancée
go at it."
Danny probably wished he could have scrubbed all evidence of the existence of "Made for
Each Other" from the internet after he was accused of rape.
His role as a sleazy lawyer later caught the internet's attention, thanks to a clip from
the movie that was featured in one of Danny's old interviews.
"I will rape your spouse — financially."
In 2017, it was discovered that the Los Angeles Police Department was investigating Danny
Masterson after three women accused him of sexually assaulting them in the early aughts.
"Well Netflix is firing Danny Masterson after several women accused the actor of rape."
One of the women was a Scientologist at the time and claimed that the Church of Scientology
had discouraged her from going to the police.
Two years later, People reported that four women had filed a civil suit against Masterson
and the Church of Scientology.
They claimed that they had been harassed and stalked after coming forward with their rape allegations.
Masterson reacted to the lawsuit by releasing a combative statement in which he threatened
to countersue the plaintiffs.
He also singled out one of the women, his ex-girlfriend Chrissie Carnell Bixler, saying,
"I will beat her in court — and look forward to it because the public will finally be able
[to] learn the truth and see how I've been railroaded by this woman."
Masterson adopted a different attitude in May 2021 when he showed up at a Los Angeles
courthouse for a preliminary hearing.
He and Phillips were all smiles in a since-deleted Instagram selfie that was snapped outside
the courthouse.
Masterson captioned the photo,
"Had the most beautiful Uber driver drop me off at school today."
Phillips was reportedly stunned by Masterson's May 2023 conviction on two rape counts.
A source told People,
"She couldn't believe that he was taken into custody right away and remanded."
When it came time for Masterson's sentencing, Phillips begged the judge for leniency in
a letter, writing,
"I know he has been convicted of serious crimes, but the man I married has only been an extraordinary
husband to me and a devoted father to our daughter."
In a seemingly blatant attempt to tug at the judge's heartstrings, Phillips dedicated a
great deal of her letter to her and Masterson's daughter.
She also suggested that Masterson deserved some credit for never complaining about his
fatherly duties.
But Masterson's crimes were so horrific that the judge slapped him with a 30-year sentence, anyway.
An insider told the Daily Mail that Phillips still believes Masterson is innocent, and
her sympathies do not lie with his victims.
Instead, she's concerned about what might happen to him in prison.
While it's possible that Bijou Phillips came to her senses and realized that Danny Masterson
is not husband material, some experts think that her decision to divorce Masterson after
his sentencing was a strategic move.
In her attorney's statement to TMZ, there was certainly no indication that Phillips
had suddenly decided that the guilty verdict was just and that she believed Masterson's victims.
Instead, she had more praise for Masterson.
The statement read in part,
"Ms. Phillips acknowledges that Mr. Masterson is a wonderful father to their daughter."
Attorney Holly Davis told Insider that the civil suit against Masterson might have something
to do with the divorce.
The legal dissolution of the marriage could be an attempt to protect some of their property and funds.
Basically, whatever gets awarded to Phillips after the exes' assets are divided could be
untouchable in legal proceedings.
According to Davis,
"Any future lawsuits against Danny won't be able to look to joint assets for payment,
because Bijou will no longer be married to Danny."
An insider also stated that some of Phillips' loved ones also managed to talk her into it
by arguing that it would serve as an important lesson for her daughter about accountability.
But the source added,
"Bijou loves Danny, always will, and really hopes that his sentence is eventually lessened
and or reversed."