Diane Keaton spoke up on Twitter in defense of her longtime friend Woody Allen on Monday, saying that she believes the controversial director’s denials about molestation of his adopted daughter.
Allen’s daughter, Dylan Farrow, claimed that he molested her in an attic in 1992 when she was seven years old. Allen has long denied the allegations and was investigated, but never charged.
Keaton, who was a star in Allen’s movies like Manhattan and Annie Hall, posted a 1992 TV interview in which Allen dismissed the abuse allegations.
In early January, Farrow gave her first on-camera interview to CBS This Morning about her longstanding abuse allegations against the 82-year-old filmmaker. (You can watch a clip of that interview, below.)
“What I don’t understand is how is this crazy story of me being brainwashed and coached more believable than what I’m saying about being sexually assaulted by my father,” she said during the interview.
Allen still denies the allegations made against him, and he issued a statement in response to Farrow’s TV interview, pointing out that investigations by the Child Sexual Abuse Clinic of Yale New Haven Hospital and the Connecticut state prosecutor into the alleged incident had “concluded a quarter of a century ago.”
Keaton wasn’t the only one defending Allen. Actor Alec Baldwin has been especially vocal over the last week in defence of the director.
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“1 of the most effective things Dylan Farrow has in her arsenal is the ‘persistence of emotion.’ Like Mayella in TKAM, her tears/exhortations r meant 2 shame u in 2 belief in her story. But I need more than that before I destroy some1, regardless of their fame. I need a lot more,” read the tweet.
Earlier this month, Baldwin said that Farrow’s renunciation of Allen and his work is “unfair and sad.”
Producer Judd Apatow took issue with Keaton’s defence of Allen on Tuesday, directly quoting her tweet. He didn’t reference Farrow’s accusations but instead referred to the story of how Allen met his wife, Soon-Yi Previn, who is approximately 35 years his junior. (Previn’s exact age is uncertain.) Previn is also the adopted daughter of Mia Farrow.
“I see a man who wanted what he wanted and didn’t care that he was having an affair with a 19-year-old when he was 54 who was also his daughter’s sister,” Apatow tweeted. “He also took nude photos of this child who he had known since she was nine and left them out for his family to see. Narcissism.”
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Buoyed by the #MeToo movement, several actors who’ve appeared in Allen films have publicly disavowed the filmmaker, including Greta Gerwig and Mira Sorvino.
Multiple cast members of Allen’s upcoming movie A Rainy Day in New York have announced plans to donate their salaries to sexual abuse organizations.
— With files from the Associated Press
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