As more Hollywood stars who have worked with Woody Allen are distancing themselves from the Oscar-winning filmmaker over sexual abuse allegations, one of his longtime leading ladies has remained an unwavering defender.
Diane Keaton tweeted Monday that “Woody Allen is my friend and I continue to believe him.” She urged followers to watch a “60 Minutes” profile of Allen from 1992 in which he addressed reports that he allegedly molested his then-7-year-old daughter, Dylan Farrow, in an attic.
At the time, Allen was in the midst of a divorce from actress Mia Farrow. The director was having an affair with Farrow’s adopted college-aged daughter, Soon-Yi Previn (whom he would later marry).
“Be logical about this, I’m 57,” Allen told “60 Minutes.” “Isn’t it illogical I’m going to — at the height of a very bitter, acrimonious custody fight — drive up to Connecticut, where nobody likes me now so I’m in a house full of enemies … that I’m going to drive up there and suddenly on visitation pick this moment in my life to become a child molester.”
“If I wanted to be a child molester, I had many opportunities in the past. I could have quietly made it a custody settlement with Mia in some way and done it in the future,” Allen added. “It’s so insane.”
He blamed Farrow for coaching Dylan, their adopted daughter, “methodically” and said Farrow threatened him a month before the accusation came out that she had something “nasty” planned. A subsequent investigation did not result in charges and Allen has repeatedly denied the allegation.
Keaton’s decision to openly support Allen comes amid a heightened awareness of sexual misconduct in Hollywood by powerful men.
While the “Annie Hall” actress hasn’t starred in an Allen project since 1993, she has long called him a close friend.
In 2014, she accepted the Cecil B. DeMille Award on his behalf at the Golden Globes.
“It’s kind of hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that 179 of the world’s most captivating actresses have appeared in Woody Allen’s films,” she told the audience. “And there’s a reason for this. And the reason is, they wanted to.”
Director Judd Apatow, who has previously questioned why young actresses still want to work with Allen, tweeted in response Tuesday to Keaton that he sees a man who simply “wanted what he wanted” and exhibited “narcissism.”
Earlier this month, Dylan Farrow, now 32, also conducted her first on-camera interview about the alleged molestation, telling “CBS This Morning”that Allen was a hero of hers — but ultimately betrayed her.
“Why shouldn’t I want to bring him down? Why shouldn’t I be angry? Why shouldn’t I be hurt? Why shouldn’t I feel some sort of outrage that after all these years being ignored and disbelieved and tossed aside?” she asked.
In a statement responding to the interview, Allen said “the Farrow family is cynically using the opportunity afforded by the Time’s Up movement to repeat this discredited allegation, that doesn’t make it any more true today than it was in the past.”
Related: Dylan Farrow on Allen: ‘Why shouldn’t I want to bring him down?’
While Keaton isn’t the only actor to defend Allen — Alec Baldwin in now-deleted tweets compared Dylan Farrow to a character in “To Kill a Mockingbird” who lies about being raped — many have said they regret working with him.
Oscar-nominated director Greta Gerwig, who appeared in his 2012 comedy “To Rome with Love,” told The New York Times this month that “I will not work for him again.”
And Kate Winslet, who starred in last year’s Allen drama “Wonder Wheel,” alluded to him — and others — during a speech Sunday at the London Critics’ Circle Film Awards. She said she has “bitter regrets” about working with certain directors and producers.