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Patton Oswalt And Meredith Salenger Respond To Trolls Who Criticized Their Engagement

Patton Oswalt And Meredith Salenger Respond To Trolls Who Criticized Their Engagement

Patton Oswalt has hit back at the online trolls who criticized his recent engagement to actress Meredith Salenger.

Salenger confirmed the happy news with a post on Twitter last week, and while the response from many was positive, others felt the engagement came too soon after the death of Oswalt’s previous wife. Michelle McNamara died in April 2016 due to a combination of prescription medications and an undiagnosed heart problem.

On Saturday, Oswalt called out the trolls with a post on Facebook, in which he shared a link to a blog post titled, “A Widow’s Rage Defense of Patton Oswalt’s Engagement,” by a woman named Erica Roman. (Oswalt also shared the blog on Twitter.)

“I expected some bitter grub worms to weigh in (anonymously, always always always) with their much-needed opinions when I announced my engagement last week. And I decided to ignore them,” he wrote, adding, “But yeah, I felt this rage. And Erica articulated it better than I could have ever hoped.”

Salenger also weighed in, replying to her fiancé’s tweet with a note as well as a link to Roman’s blog post.

“Everyone has been so lovely to us… ALL of Michelle’s siblings and friends and family… a few trolls have strong opinions,” Salenger wrote. “But I think for Patton, having met and found love after over a year of intense therapy and openly grieving and dealing with his pain…I am grateful to be the one who helps him climb out of the depths of grief and find some joy again. And most of all… Alice is happy and feels loved.”

Following McNamara’s death, Oswalt was extremely open about dealing with grief and learning to raise the couple’s young daughter, Alice, on his own.

“I’ll never be at 100 percent again, but that won’t stop me from living this,” he said in October of last year, after returning to stand-up comedy.

Oswalt and Salenger have been dating for about three months, though they just went public with their relationship in June at the premiere of the movie “Baby Driver” in Los Angeles.

Clarification: Language has been amended to reflect that Oswalt’s wife Michelle McNamara died in April 2016, not April of this year.

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