“This is the joke I’ve been making forever,” the actress said about her polarizing Instagram caption.

Jenny Mollen has a new theory about why she got backlash for comparing her son to a ‘toxic boyfriend’

"This is the joke I've been making forever," the actress said about her polarizing Instagram caption.

By Marina Watts

Marina Watts

Marina Watts is a news writer for with seven years experience covering entertainment, pop culture and celebrity news. Her previous work appears in PEOPLE, Bustle and Newsweek.

EW's editorial guidelines

June 23, 2026 11:42 a.m. ET

Leave a Comment

Jenny Mollen at the 'Influenced' screening in New York in April 2026. Credit:

Manny Carabel/Getty

- Jenny Mollen theorized why her post comparing her son to a "toxic" boyfriend sparked backlash online.

- The actress said that her audience on Facebook may not get her sense of humor the same way her Instagram following does.

- Mollen's post came amid news she and her husband of 18 years, Jason Biggs, were calling it quits.

Jenny Mollen is still thinking about why her comment about her eldest son took the internet by storm.

Mollen made waves in May when she captioned a photo of Sid, 12, via Instagram: "Your eldest son will be the most toxic man you ever date." During a recent appearance on the *Not Skinny But Not Fat** *podcast, Mollen said she believes that those who took offense to her joke hadn't heard her make the comment before.

"Well, I think [my assistant] Caroline, not to put throw Caroline under the bus, but somebody attached my Instagram to my Facebook. And Facebook is a different demo of humans. And I think that that's where it started to like get this weird traction," Mollen began.

Mollen said that "this is the joke I've been making forever."

"I'm in this dysfunctional relationship with like a guy who's like, can you hold my head while I like vomit into the toilet? Can you give me a full body massage before bed? Can you be a dear and put more ice in my water bottle? Like, this is the treatment."

"Use and abuse me," continued Mollen, "And I'm still, like, 'is he going to call'? Like, I was never that girl. I've never been in that kind of relationship."

Jenny Mollen breaks silence on split with Jason Biggs in reflective essay

Jenny Mollen says relationship with Jason Biggs is ‘still romantic’ after split

She also acknowledged the photo might have caused the uproar online. "I think they thought that, maybe, the hug looked lascivious. I'm not sure," Mollen said.

"I don't think they liked the caption. I think 'toxic' got in some sort of algorithm search and you're probably reading about like being like abused and then you see this woman like embracing her son and they're just like what the f--k, you know? They couldn't handle it. It threw them over the edge."

***Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with our ******EW Dispatch newsletter******.***

Mollen thinks her her split from Jason Biggs, announced in May, after 18 years of marriage, may have also contributed to the discourse.

"If I had made this joke a month ago, two months ago, it would have played differently. And I'm still married, but, like, I was publicly like with a man. And I think that there's something about a woman who is not attached to a man that somehow reads as a threat."

Jenny Mollen and Amanda Hirsch on 'Not Skinny But Not Fat' in 2026.

Not Skinny But Not Fat

Host Amanda Hirsch concluded that the expanded audience didn't know Mollen well enough to realize she was making a joke. "These are people that don't know you. I feel like once it gets in the algorithm, you're not in control."

Watch Jenny Mollen breakdown her eyebrow-raising Instagram post on *Not Skinny But Not Fat *below.

Original Article on Source

Source: “EW News”