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Spike Lee defends ‘friend’ Woody Allen amid ‘this cancel thing’

The New York Daily News - 6/13/2020

Spike Lee doesn’t plan to cancel anyone.

While promoting his new film for Netflix, “Da 5 Bloods,” Lee weighed in on some timely issues, including the way many people regard Woody Allen amid cancel culture and the wake of #MeToo.

“I’d just like to say Woody Allen’s a great, great filmmaker," the Brooklynite, 63, told New York’s WOR 710 radio Friday. “And this cancel thing is not just Woody."

The Oscar winner added that, “I think that, when you know, we look back on it, we’re gonna see that, I don’t know if just short of killing somebody, I don’t know you just erase somebody like they never existed. So, Woody’s a friend of mine, a fellow Knick fan, so I know he’s going through it right now.”

The 84-year-old “Annie Hall” director has long been controversial following sexual abuse allegations by his adoptive daughter, Dylan Farrow, dating back to the early 1990s.

Farrow, now 34, accused Allen of molesting her when she was 7. The alleged abuse took place at the home of her adoptive mother and Allen’s ex, Mia Farrow.

The molestation allegedly occurred in the months after the “Hannah and Her Sisters” actress found out that Allen was romantically linked to Farrow’s adoptive daughter, Soon-Yi Previn, then aged 21.

Allen has long denied the allegations, on which Dylan Farrow has only doubled down in adulthood.

Following the height of the #MeToo movement, many actors who had previously collaborated with Allen in the years following the allegations refused to ever work with him again. The running list includes Colin Firth, Greta Gerwig, Michael Caine, Rachel Brosnahan, Peter Sarsgaard, Timothée Chalamet and Evan Rachel Wood.

Others, such as Diane Keaton and Scarlett Johansson received backlash for believing and defending him.

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