Woody: I'm 'poster boy' for #MeToo
Accused child molester Woody Allen says the #MeToo movement should put his name and face on posters — but not the kind issued by law enforcement.
The “Annie Hall” director called himself a “big advocate” of the anti-sexual harassment campaign, despite being labeled an abuser himself.
“I should be the poster boy for the MeToo Movement,” he told the Argentine news program “Periodismo Para Todos” — “Journalism For All” — in an interview that aired Sunday.
“I’ve worked with hundreds of actresses and not a single one — big ones, famous ones, ones starting out — have ever, ever suggested any kind of impropriety at all.”
Allen — accused of sexually assaulting his young daughter 25 years ago in charges that were never criminally substantiated — said he applauds when harassers are publicly unveiled.
“You root for them, you want them to bring to justice these terrible harassers, these people that do all these terrible things. And I think that’s a good thing,” he said in the interview.
But the clapping stops when Allen’s own name pops up on the hit list.
“What bothers me is that I get linked in with them,” he said.
Allen’s estranged son, reporter Ronan Farrow, has kept the director’s name in the glare while investigating allegations of sexual misconduct against producer Harvey Weinstein.
Farrow dredged up the allegations by his sister Dylan in a guest column for The Hollywood Reporter in 2016 and said he believes her.
Allen — who has maintained the allegations are untrue and resulted from a gruelling breakup with his former partner Mia Farrow — argued he doesn’t fit the profile of those being associated with #MeToo.
“People who have been accused by 20 women, 50 women, 100 women of abuse and abuse and abuse. And I, who was only accused by one woman in a child-custody case, which was looked at and proven to be un- true, I get lumped in with these people.”
Director and actress Greta Gerwig, who appeared in Allen’s “To Rome With Love,” said in an online discussion forum with TV writer Aaron Sorkin that she regretted her decision to work with the filmmaker.
“I have not worked for him again, and I will not work for him again,” she said.
Actors Colin Firth, Rachel Brosnahan and Timothée Cha- lamet also vowed to never work with him after Farrow’s column was printed.
Allen entered into a relationship with Farrow’s adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn around the time the allegations surfaced. They wed in 1997, are still together and have two children.
Allen’s son Moses Farrow wrote a blog post last month defending his father against the allegations.