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An open Letter to Jensen Ackles

I am writing this with the hope that you will actually read it. I know that if I tried to say this to you directly—at a convention, in a meet-and-greet, anywhere we might actually speak—you would either cut me off or mock me. I’m choosing to write this because I’m extending you the basic decency of a complete thought, the same decency I’m asking you to extend to the fans who approach you with genuine questions. I have the utmost respect for you, and I’m writing this letter in that same spirit of respect.

I know this letter is long. It’s long because this has been several years in the making. I hope you’ll return my respect by actually reading to the end.

Dear Jensen,

I want to start by acknowledging something that should never be lost in this conversation: you are an extraordinarily talented actor. Your portrayal of Dean Winchester was nothing short of remarkable. You brought depth, vulnerability, humour, and humanity to a character who could have easily been one-dimensional. You made him real, complex, flawed, struggling with his identity and his capacity to love. In doing so, you created something that resonated deeply with millions of people around the world, including countless queer fans who saw themselves reflected in that character’s journey.

Your work matters. The connection fans feel to Dean matters. And that’s precisely why this conversation is so important.

Just to be clear from the outset: we’re not asking you to change your mind about how you played Dean. We respect your opinion on this and will always defend your right to that opinion. We’re asking you to change how you treat the fans who see something beautiful in your work. Something that has given us hope, community, and representation in a world that often offers us none of those things. We’re simply asking you to respect our reading of Dean, in the same way your opinion deserves to be respected.

Over the years, a pattern of behaviour has emerged in how you respond to questions about Destiel and queer interpretations of your character. At conventions, spaces that should be celebratory and inclusive, you have repeatedly reacted to these topics with dismissiveness, hostility, and what can only be described as poorly veiled homophobia. At Purgatory this year, you equated Destiel to wincest—a ship that doesn’t just depict incest, but incest involving abuse of power, grooming, and often paedophilia, with the writers deliberately aging up Dean as an adult while keeping Sam as a child. You’ve reduced queer fans to being “sex-obsessed,” as if our interpretation of emotional intimacy and love between two male characters is inherently pornographic. You’ve become visibly angry when questions even slightly hint at queerness. You’ve accused fans of trying to “trap” you into saying something, treating genuine curiosity and vulnerable sharing as some kind of malicious gotcha.

Let me give you a specific, recent example that illustrates exactly how harmful this behaviour is. At a convention in Vegas, a fan asked allof the guests whether they had watched “Heated Rivalry.” This wasn’t a trap. It wasn’t about Destiel. It was about a piece of queer media that had become a cultural phenomenon, and this fan, like many of us, was interested in whether the actors they admired and respected had engaged with something meaningful to the queer community. Every other guest answered the question with grace and respect. You were the only one who refused to answer. But you didn'tjust refuse to answer, you mocked the fan for asking. You got angry about being asked about a queer show.

And then, Jensen, that fan was relentlessly harassed online. Your defensive fans, emboldened by your reaction, descended on this person with vitriol and abuse. That fan no longer feels safe attending Supernatural conventions. Read that again: because you couldn’t respond to a simple question about queer media with basic respect, a real person now feels unsafe in spaces that should be about community and shared love of the show. Your response didn’t just hurt in the moment. It had far-reaching, tangible consequences for a vulnerable person’s sense of safety and belonging.

The Vegas incident isn’t an anomaly. There are dozens of examples like this spanning over a decade. Moments where you’ve responded to questions about queerness with dismissiveness or hostility. And then there was this year’s Purgatory convention, where your behaviour was so unwelcoming to queer fans that many expressed they no longer feel safe attending your conventions at all. The pattern is undeniable. The impact is cumulative.

As a professional who interacts with fans as frequently as you do, there’s a basic level of respect that should be standard. Here’s what a respectful response to a fan asking about queer interpretations of Dean actually sounds like:

“I didn’t consciously play Dean that way, but I respect any fan who sees something in the character that I didn’t plan for. That’s what art is truly about. My interpretation is only one interpretation, and yours is just as valid, even if it’s different from mine.”

That’s all it takes. You don’t have to agree. You don’t have to endorse Destiel. You don’t have to declare Dean bisexual. You simply have to acknowledge that different people see different things in art, and that’s not just okay… it’s the entire point of art. Instead, you refuse to answer questions that barely even touch on Destiel but simply acknowledge queer culture exists. You treat fans like adversaries rather than like people who love the show and the character you brought to life.

But it’s not just what you say, Jensen. It’s also what you don’t say. When you stand next to Jared Padalecki at conventions and nod along as he consistently reduces Destiel to the butt of jokes, when he equates queer shipping to paedophilia and incest, your silence speaks volumes. When you don’t call out those responses, when you don’t distance yourself from that rhetoric, you’re signalling agreement. You’re telling everyone watching, including your defensive fans and the queer fans being mocked, that you endorse this treatment of us. Your silence, combined with your own dismissiveness, makes you complicit in the harm it causes. Your silence signals agreement with Jared’s mockery, making you just as responsible.

This is the real harm we’re talking about. When you dismiss Destiel, when you mock questions about queerness, when you treat queer interpretations of Dean as something offensive or threatening, you’re not just disagreeing with a fan theory. You’re telling queer fans that we’re not welcome. That our readings of the text are invalid. That our identities, because for many of us seeing queerness in Dean is about seeing ourselves, are something to be ridiculed or erased.

For many queer fans, Dean Winchester was representation before we even had the language to name it. We saw ourselves in his struggles with performing masculinity, in his fear of being seen as “too much” or “wrong,” in the way he loved so fiercely but couldn’t always say it out loud. We saw ourselves in his relationship with Castiel, in the profound bond, the years of devotion, the way they kept choosing each other. And when the show itself canonized Castiel’s love for Dean in that final season, it validated what so many of us had seen all along.

I know what you’ve said: “I didn’t play Dean that way.” Perhaps you didn’t consciously intend to play Dean as queer or bisexual. But here’s what you need to understand: what ended up on screen wasn’t just about how you played it. Television is a collaborative medium. The writers wrote those lines, and some of those writers have explicitly confirmed that they wrote Dean with queer subtext, that they intentionally crafted that relationship between Dean and Castiel. Your co-stars Rich Speight Jr. and Rob Benedict, people who worked alongside you for years with Rich directing some of the show’s most pivotal episodes including the confession scene where Cas tells Dean he loves him, have explicitly stated on their podcast that they now see the queer reading of Dean and understand why fans love it. Rich directed that confession scene. He made the creative choices about how to frame it, how to light it, how to capture the emotion and weight of that moment.

Castiel’s confession in that moment was romantic gay love for Dean. You’ve repeatedly reduced that scene to “brotherly love”—which is not just insulting to fans, but insulting to Bobo Berens, to Rich’s directorial vision, and the artistic choices he made in crafting one of the most pivotal moments of the show. The directors framed those shots. The editors chose which takes to use, which moments to linger on, which glances between you and Misha Collins to emphasise. The cinematographers lit those scenes. The composers scored those moments. All of these elements combined to create what the audience experienced—and what many of us experienced was a love story.

When you dismiss the queer reading of Dean, you’re not just invalidating the fans. You’re invalidating your fellow artists, people you worked with directly on set day after day, scene after scene. You’re dismissing the intentional creative choices of the writers who crafted those scenes, the directors like Rich who shaped those pivotal moments and now openly acknowledge what they created, the co-stars like Misha and Rob who have watched the show and understand exactly why people see Destiel and the queer reading of Dean. Most importantly, you’re dismissing Bobo Berens, an openly queer writer who explicitly stated that he stayed with the show as long as he did specifically for this moment, to write Castiel’s gay love confession, and that he wrote Dean as ‘open to interpretation’.

And here’s what’s undeniable, Jensen: Destiel didn’t come from fans imposing something onto Dean. It came from fans reacting to your portrayal of him. Dean’s absolute devastation at losing Castiel. Dean’s sudden happiness when Cas returns. The looks Dean gave to Castiel, those moments of vulnerability, of longing, of something deeper than friendship. That all came from you. Fans didn’t create Destiel in a vacuum. They responded to what you brought to those scenes, to the emotional truth you portrayed in those moments. While you may not have consciously played Dean that way, it was your portrayal of him that gave Destiel life and made it a beloved part of the show.

And let me be absolutely clear about what this means. This speaks volumes about your talent as an actor, not about your sexuality or your personal life. Your ability to portray such depth, vulnerability, and emotional truth, to create moments that resonate on levels you may not have consciously intended, that’s what separates extraordinary actors from adequate ones. It’s a compliment to your craft, not an accusation about who you are as a person. You created something so rich and layered that it transcends a single interpretation. That’s the mark of a truly gifted performer.

These are the people you worked alongside for fifteen years, and their artistic contributions are just as valid as yours. By refusing to acknowledge what they created, what you all created together, you’re essentially saying that your interpretation is the only one that matters, that everyone else’s work and vision is irrelevant. That’s disrespectful to the collaborative art form you claim to honour.

Let’s look at how other cast members handle this. Misha is far from perfect. He makes sex jokes about Destiel far too often, and he’s not immune to being inappropriate. But here’s the crucial difference: despite his occasional missteps, Misha has stood up for queer fans. He celebrates Cas’s queerness publicly. He makes Destiel fans feel seen and valued. When he engages with the fandom, even when he stumbles, there’s an underlying respect and acknowledgment that what fans see matters.

And look at Kim Rhodes and Briana Buckmaster, who play Jody and Donna. They’re openly welcoming to fans who ship their characters. They lean into it fully. They don’t mock it or dismiss it; they embrace it as part of the show’s legacy and the fans’ connection to it.

Across the industry, straight-presenting actors who are part of fan ships, even ships that depict relationships they don’t personally experience, celebrate and support those fan readings. They understand that their performance belongs to the audience once it’s out in the world. This is the industry standard. This is how actors can respond with grace.

Misha’s inappropriate jokes are nothing compared to your outright dismissiveness and hostility. There’s a world of difference between occasional awkwardness from someone who fundamentally respects fan interpretation, and systematic hostility from someone who treats that interpretation as an attack. Misha’s approach, Kim and Briana’s approach, imperfect as they all may be, shows that it’s possible to honour fan interpretation without feeling threatened by it. You’ve chosen a different path.

And here’s what makes this even more painful, Jensen: your inconsistency. There have been moments, rare, but real, where you’ve acknowledged the bond between Cas and Dean. Moments where you’ve said that Cas’s love for Dean isn’t subtext, it’s clear text. Moments where you’ve talked about being influenced by their relationship when you were writing and recording “Watching Over Me.” In those moments, queer fans celebrated. We felt seen. We felt hopeful that maybe, finally, you were beginning to understand what your work meant to us. Some of your own fans insisted you were being “forced” to say positive things, but we wanted to believe you were being genuine.

And then you turn around at another convention and completely undo it all. You get angry at a fan asking a legitimate question. You go on a defensive rant. You reduce everything back to jokes or dismissiveness. The whiplash is devastating. It makes every positive gesture, every time you pose with a pride flag in a photo op, every seemingly supportive interaction with a queer fan, feel hollow and performative. It makes us question whether any of it was ever genuine, or if you’re simply saying what’s convenient in the moment, what will get you the least pushback in that particular room.

The inconsistency reveals that your positive moments aren’t coming from a place of authentic understanding—they’re performative gestures abandoned the moment they require vulnerability or growth on your part.

If you actually took the time to watch the show—to see what we saw, rather than just remembering what you intended, you might understand this. You might see the way Dean looks at Cas. The way the camera holds on those moments. The way the narrative kept bringing them back to each other, season after season, in ways that transcended friendship or brotherhood. You might listen to what the writers have said about their intentions, what Rich and Rob have acknowledged on their podcast, what your co-stars have observed. It was said in a recent episode of Supernatural: Then and Now, by Bobo Berens, that the writing in that episode definitely has queer subtext for Dean, that while his intention was not strictly romantic, watching it back now he can absolutely see how it was read as romantic. It was even described by them as Dean sneaking out to meet up with his boyfriend (Cas). So, you see, your performance is only one piece of a much larger artistic puzzle, and the final picture that emerged is bigger than any single person’s intention.

And here’s the thing, Jensen: that should be something to celebrate. The fact that your work, your portrayal of this character, gave so many queer people a sense of representation and hope? That’s an honour. That’s the dream of any artist: to create something that means so much to people, that helps them understand themselves, that makes them feel less alone. The fact that vulnerable people saw themselves in Dean Winchester, that your performance helped them through dark times, that they found community and identity through this character—you should be humbled by that. You should be grateful. Instead, you act threatened. You act as if our interpretation somehow diminishes your work or attacks your masculinity.

It doesn’t. It celebrates your work. It says, “You created something so rich and complex that it transcends your original intent. You created art.”

Not to be crass, but let’s talk about money, because this matters. Fans pay upwards of $2,000 just to attend a convention, before travel, accommodation, or anything else. Then they pay thousands more for photo ops lasting mere seconds (for example a single group photo op with you, Misha, Mark and Jared now costs around $850), for autographs, for a single question at a panel. They do this because they love your work. They do this to show appreciation for a story that meant everything to them.

And here’s the part that should genuinely trouble you: Your entire convention career, your income, your platform, heck your success in this industry, exists because we the fans keep showing up and paying those prices, because we were so devoted that we kept Supernatural on the air for 15 years. You have benefited financially, professionally, and personally from our passion and dedication. Enormously.

So when a fan scrapes together those exorbitant fees, sacrificing and saving because they can no longer easily afford these spaces that once felt like home, they shouldn’t have to pay thousands of dollars (pounds or euros) to be mocked, ridiculed, and subjected to your anger for daring to ask about something that relates to how they connect to your character. They’re not attacking you. They’re there because they love what you created. And you repay that love, that financial investment, that vulnerability, with contempt.

You owe them respect as human beings deserving of basic dignity, and as paying customers who have built your convention career. The fact that you seem to have missed this distinction entirely is frankly stunning.

And yet there’s been so much talk in certain corners of the fandom about how fans need to “respect Jensen” by not asking any questions relating to Destiel or any perceived queerness in the fictional character of Dean Winchester. But let’s call that what it actually is: that’s not respect. That’s kowtowing to fragile masculinity. That’s teaching fans—especially young queer fans—that their questions are shameful, that queerness is something inappropriate to mention, that they need to silence themselves to protect a grown man’s comfort. Real respect is a two-way street. What you’re asking for isn’t respect—it’s a one-way mirror where we see your humanity, but you don’t have to see ours.

But perhaps most damaging is how your behaviour enables and emboldens violence within the fandom—and I’m using that word deliberately. When you mock queer fans, when you dismiss our interpretations, when you react with hostility to questions about queerness, you send a clear signal to your defensive fans: This is acceptable. These people deserve ridicule. And they listen. They harass us. They bully us. They send death threats. They drive people out of convention and fandom spaces.

Your defensive fans have explicitly stated online that they hope you’ll react aggressively to one of these questions and “send a message” through violence—that they want you to use your platform and influence to validate attacking us. That’s not hyperbole. That’s not fans being dramatic. That’s the direct result of your behaviour.

But it goes beyond hope for violence. Your fans are now, more than ever, actively threatening Destiel fans and fan artists, calling their art disgusting, harassing them for daring to create or bring Destiel art to conventions for you to sign. They’re reporting these fans and artists to Creation Entertainment in attempts to get them banned from conventions entirely. They’re weaponising the convention system against people whose only crime is creating art inspired by your performance and sharing their love of it. And they’re doing this believing they have your blessing, with the tacit approval of your silence, the understanding that you agree with their assessment that Destiel is something shameful and unwelcome.

And it extends even further. Your fans have turned on Misha, your co-star, your friend of over a decade, calling him a creep, a leech, someone who’s only relevant because he’s riding your coattails, someone who uses Destiel to stay connected to Supernatural because otherwise he’d have no reason to be part of the convention circuit. They’ve started petitions to get him banned from Creation conventions, harassed him and his fans online. All because they believe they’re defending you, ‘protecting you’, from your friend and from the mere suggestion of queerness in Dean. Your silence, your dismissiveness, your refusal to stand up for the queer interpretation of your own character, they’ve weaponised it against him. They believe they’re acting in your interests. And they’re doing this to a man you’ve worked alongside for over a decade, someone who has consistently shown more respect for fan interpretation than you have.

Your fans’ hate campaign against Misha has now achieved tangible results. At Toronto—where you and Misha were the headliners—Creation Entertainment replaced the JenMish panel with a JR2 (Jensen/Rob/Rich) panel instead. When fans who emailed Creation asking why were given the response that “a lot of people emailed requesting a different panel,” the excuse was as flimsy as it was convenient.

Let’s be clear about the double standard at work here: Creation Entertainment has never changed a J2 panel when you and Jared are the headliners. Fans have been emailing Creation for years asking for more JenMish panels, not fewer. And when Jared cancelled his convention appearance earlier this year at the last minute, Creation added a JR2 panel as a substitution—meaning Creation itself created that panel as a replacement. Yet now they’re using the excuse that it’snot a panel that has been done before as cover to explain why they replaced the expected JenMish headliner panel.

There is nothing against the JR2 panel itself. We all love Rob and Rich. But that panel replaced a JenMish headliner panel that should have happened, and hundreds of fans who travelled from overseas specifically to see you and Misha together on stage were left with nothing.

Unsurprisingly, what happened next is that your fans celebrated that their emails “worked” to remove Misha from the panel. They are already planning their next move: emailing to get the JenMish photo ops removed as well.

Whether Creation Entertainment capitulated to a harassment campaign or simply provided convenient cover for a decision that achieved the same effect, the message sent is identical and deeply dangerous: organised harassment campaigns work. For the first time in Creation Entertainment’s history, a headliner was removed from the headliner panel—and it happened because of coordinated pressure from fans who have spent years trying to erase Misha from your conventions.

This goes far beyond disappointing hundreds of devoted fans. It normalises fan harassment as a legitimate tool for controlling convention programming. It tells toxic fans that their campaigns are effective, that their emails result in action, and that they should continue and escalate their efforts. When a convention organizer allows itself to be weaponised against cast members this way, it sets a precedent that is unconscionable.

And your silence in the face of it is complicity.

The fan in Vegas didn’t just experience your mockery in that moment. They experienced the avalanche of online abuse that followed, abuse that was directly enabled by your reaction, that would not have happened with the same ferocity if you’d simply responded with basic respect. When you treat queer interpretations as something to be ridiculed or dismissed, you create an environment where harassment is seen as justified, even righteous.

You have a platform. You have influence. You have fans who would hurt people on your behalf, who have created groups to work together to doxx Destiel fans who dare ask you questions. And with that power comes responsibility, the responsibility to not weaponise it against vulnerable people who simply want to feel safe in spaces built around something you created.

So, here’s what accountability looks like, Jensen: It means genuinely reflecting on the impact of your words and actions, not just your intentions. It means understanding that when you dismiss queer readings of Dean, you’re dismissing real people’s identities and experiences. It means recognising that your discomfort with these interpretations is not more important than queer fans’ need to feel safe and respected in fandom spaces.

It means offering a real apology—not a defensive “I’m sorry you were offended,” but an acknowledgment of harm caused. It means committing to treat all fans with basic dignity and respect, regardless of their interpretation of the work. It means using your platform to make it clear that harassment of any fans, including and especially queer fans, is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.

It means doing better.

You don’t have to love Destiel. You don’t have to agree with queer readings of Dean. But you do have to treat us like human beings whose interpretations are as valid as anyone else’s. You do have to recognise that your work belongs to the audience now, and what we see in it is real and meaningful, even if it wasn’t what you intended.

Your talent is undeniable. Your impact is real. And talent and impact come with responsibility: not just to create good work, but to use your platform without causing harm. You’ve neglected that responsibility. It’s time to choose differently.

We’re still here. We’re still hoping you’ll listen. We’re still willing to believe you can do better.

But you have to actually try.

We are willing to have this conversation, but you have to be as well.

Respectfully, but firmly,

A fan who still believes in your capacity for growth

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