Okay, eww. Woody Allen – the man who allegedly abused his adopted daughter, and who married step-daughter – has told the BBC that he feels sorry for disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein.
Weinstein has been accused of sexual harassment, abuse and assault by dozens of women who allege the incidents occurred over several decades. He’s been kicked off the Oscars committee, fired from his own company and abandoned by his wife and lawyers. This would be cause for pity, were it not all the result of his abominable behaviour –allegedly an entire career’s worth of cajoling, coercing, intimidating, manipulating and otherwise maltreating the women he worked with.
Of course, Allen owes Weinstein a hefty debt, with the producer reportedly responsible for resuscitating Allen’s career after the allegations that Allen molested Dylan Farrow, his adopted daughter with actor Mia Farrow.
He told the BBC:
No one ever came to me or told me horror stories with any real seriousness. And they wouldn’t, because you are not interested in it. You are interested in making your movie.
But you do hear a million fanciful rumours all the time. And some turn out to be true and some – many – are just stories about this actress, or that actor.
The whole Harvey Weinstein thing is very sad for everybody involved. Tragic for the poor women that were involved, sad for Harvey that is life is so messed up.
There’s no winners in that, it’s just very, very sad and tragic for those poor women that had to go through that.
Allen added that he hoped the flood of allegations would lead to “some amelioration“, but followed up with:
You also don’t want it to lead to a witch hunt atmosphere, a Salem atmosphere, where every guy in an office who winks at a woman is suddenly having to call a lawyer to defend himself. That’s not right either.
But sure, you hope that something like this could be transformed into a benefit for people rather than just a sad or tragic situation.
On the one hand, yes, one would hope that something positive comes out of this whole seething mess – but you’d hope that the positive thing would be a massive shift in Hollywood’s toxic casting couch culture, not Harvey Weinstein feeling a bit better.
To be entirely frank: cry us a fucking river, Woody. The man deserves everything he gets.
