Alec Baldwin is making it really difficult to like him.
On Tuesday, the 59-year-old actor shared a series of tweets in which he defended alleged child molester Woody Allen as more and more Hollywood stars turn their backs on the Oscar-winning director.
“Woody Allen was investigated forensically by two states (NY and CT) and no charges were filed. The renunciation of him and his work, no doubt, has some purpose,” he tweeted on his nonprofit’s account. “But it’s unfair and sad to me. I worked w WA 3 times and it was one of the privileges of my career.”
As the #TimesUp initiative and #MeToo movement gained momentum, longstanding sexual abuse allegations against Allen have resurfaced. In 1992, the now 82-year-old filmmaker was accused of molesting his then 7-year-old adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow; however, as Baldwin pointed out, Allen has never been charged with any crime in connection to the claims.
In a recent op-ed for the Los Angeles Times, Farrow called out the actors who have chosen to work with her Allen despite her allegations.
“I have long maintained that when I was 7 years old, Woody Allen led me into an attic, away from the babysitters who had been instructed never to leave me alone with him. He then sexually assaulted me. I told the truth to the authorities then, and I have been telling it, unaltered, for more than 20 years,” she wrote. “Why is it that Harvey Weinstein and other accused celebrities have been cast out by Hollywood, while Allen recently secured a multimillion-dollar distribution deal with Amazon, greenlit by former Amazon Studios executive Roy Price before he was suspended over sexual misconduct allegations?”
Though some stars like Baldwin and Kate Winslet have defended Allen (as well as their decisions to work with him), others have renounced the famed director. Lady Bird director and writer Greta Gerwig said she regretted starring in Allen’s 2012 film To Rome With Love.
“If I had known then what I know now, I would not have acted in the film. I have not worked for him again, and I will not work for him again,” she told the New York Times. “Dylan Farrow’s two different pieces made me realize that I increased another woman’s pain, and I was heartbroken by that realization. I grew up on his movies, and they have informed me as an artist, and I cannot change that fact now, but I can make different decisions moving forward.”
Actors Timothée Chalamet and Rebecca Hall, who will both star in Allen’s upcoming film A Rainy Day in New York, recently promised to donate all of their salaries from the project to Time’s Up, LGBT Center in New York, and anti-sexual assault organization RAINN.
In response to Allen’s mounting backlash, Baldwin insisted misconduct and abuse claims should never be ignored; however, he said it was important that we treat allegations “carefully.”
This isn't the first time Baldwin has made controversial comments about sexual misconduct allegations. Back in November, he was accused of victim-blaming after he suggested Rose McGowan “delayed justice” by taking a settlement from Harvey Weinstein. McGowan, who accused the movie mogul of raping her in 1997, reportedly took $100,000 in exchange for her silence.
