You gotta wonder why so many actors went out of their way to defend him back then. Whedon was thrown under the bus fast, but the actors Gunn hires have one thing in common: they are all weirdly defensive of him.
For us, it sounds normal that a friend would defend another, but in the world of Hollywood, the idea of a selfish Hollywood celebrity defending someone when it's not the popular narrative is almost unheard of. My theory is that he wouldn't hire an actor that has no loyalty to him in some way. Most if not all claim to be friends of his. How he manages that is what I would like to know.