You can really enjoy a work and also know the creator is a revolting slimebucket. You don't have to defend a creator purely on the grounds that they made something you enjoy. You enjoy things for all sorts of reasons, one of those is probably not because the author personally is the best thing since sliced bread.
The authors of your favorite stuff may one day turn out to be wretched. In no way does that invalidate the elements of that work which speak to your experience.
Whether or not a given piece of media is good is not an objective quality inherent to the work itself. It depends upon the audience and the piece's context in order to establish experience with, and a notion of, the work. In that sense, you are as much a functional, foundational element in all the works which matter to you as anything. You don't owe it to people to divest yourself of what speaks to you. The author lost the right to dictate your experience when they became slimy.
As an example, look at Minecraft. Notch is a red-faced transphobic blowhard who has pissed on his entire legacy and made a massive fool of himself on a regular basis. He's awful. Still, if I post that Minecraft Steve says trans rights, Notch won't and can't stop me from doing so. Many more people invested time and energy into it than just one Swedish incel, and their efforts matter, too.
Stuff that hits home with us more seems to impact us more when their creators turn out to be shitty. We confuse art and artist at our peril here especially, given that it resonates with us because we are the empathetic party. We have the right to empathy with the work in itself, as it is, author be damned.
People are fully capable of being shitty and artistic, as we well know, but why let them dictate our experiences? Art hinges on you to appreciate it, it's personal & yours.
In short, whatever an author's experience with a work is, whatever their canon may be, they are describing *their* relationship with their own work, you may describe yours, especially if the author forfeits their right to a platform by being a huge shitter.
Just as good people can come from abusive parents, good art can come from an abusive artist, and similarly deserves to find a home of its own, away from abusive figures.
@asherah I argue that single-author works must similarly stand on their own. If they are nasty or autobiographical or inseparable of their own merits from the author's nasty behavior, they'll be judged accordingly, but still to me that counts as judging independently of the author, it's just that the work so replicates the author that it looks as if they're synonymous. That's on the author, not on me as the person appreciating or not appreciating the piece.
Hot take on media
Whether or not a given piece of media is good is not an objective quality inherent to the work itself. It depends upon the audience and the piece's context in order to establish experience with, and a notion of, the work. In that sense, you are as much a functional, foundational element in all the works which matter to you as anything. You don't owe it to people to divest yourself of what speaks to you. The author lost the right to dictate your experience when they became slimy.