Twitter has all but canceled Diane Keaton after the actress defended her longtime friend Woody Allen, whose adopted daughter Dylan Farrow says he molested her when she was a child.
On Monday, Keaton, who has appeared in several of Allen’s films since 1977’s Annie Hall, tweeted that Allen is her “friend,” and she continues “to believe him.” She went on to include a 1992 interview with Allen on 60 Minutes, which had been re-uploaded to the show’s YouTube account in 2014, in which Allen maintains his innocence.
In 1992, Dylan and her adoptive mother, Allen’s then-separated partner Mia Farrow, said that Allen had molested Dylan. Allen has since denied the accusations, while Dylan has maintained that she was molested, and has recently spoken out amid the improving tides of believing sexual harassment and assault within the “Me Too” movement.
Woody Allen is my friend and I continue to believe him. It might be of interest to take a look at the 60 Minute interview from 1992 and see what you think. https://t.co/QVQIUxImB1
— Diane Keaton (@Diane_Keaton) January 29, 2018
In the video, Allen says Mia trained Dylan to make those accusations and that Mia executed this plan in order to get back at him for having an affair with her adopted child, Soon-Yi Previn, who was 21 at the time. He also maintained in the video that he saw nothing wrong with his affair with Previn.
“I’m 57. Isn’t it illogical that I’m going to—at the height of a very bitter, acrimonious custody fight—drive up to Connecticut, where nobody likes me…and suddenly, on visitation, pick this moment in my life to become a child molester? It’s just incredible,” Allen said in the interview, before examining the ways he could have been a child molester if he “wanted” to. “I could if I wanted to be a child molester. I had many opportunities in the past, I could have quietly made a custody settlement with Mia in some way and done it in the future. I mean, it’s so insane.”
Immediately, Allen’s critics and supporters of Dylan shot back at Keaton’s brazen defense of the actor and director, particularly within the growing movement of Hollywood actors standing up against systemic sexual abuse.
https://twitter.com/ira/status/958094420007559168
https://twitter.com/rgay/status/958109882036633600
Which was supposed to be the convincing part: where he says "If I wanted to be a child molester, I had many opportunities in the past," or when he says he'll see his girlfriend when she's home from school https://t.co/Ioy9tGjvQr
— Chase Mitchell (@ChaseMit) January 29, 2018
It is with a heavy heart that I inform you of Diane Keaton's cancellation… https://t.co/Rc3VFP6UGY
— Oona Murley (@OonaMurley) January 29, 2018
That's the thing about abusers: they do have friends. They are not monsters, but men you know and maybe even like. They are charming and kind to the people they are not abusing. That's how they get away with it and avoid consequences for their actions. https://t.co/abnJhhR5i0
— Claire (@ClaireShrugged) January 29, 2018
Some of Keaton’s loudest dissent came from Judd Apatow, who wrote that he understood Allen to be someone who dated “his daughter’s sister” and a “narcissist.” He also criticized Allen for the way he treated his previous family with Mia.
I see a man who wanted what he wanted and didn’t care that he was having an affair with a 19 year old when he was 54 who was also his daughter’s sister.He also took nude photos of this child who he had known since she was nine and left them out for his family to see. Narcissism. https://t.co/uhiTY5p7bh
— Judd Apatow 🇺🇦 (@JuddApatow) January 30, 2018
Woody Allen was so awful to that family and all of those kids, some of whom were refugees, some with disabilities.He is so proud of having no relationship with them. Can you imagine being around a family for a decade and not wanting to know any of the children? Heartbreaking. https://t.co/e0nweTB2HU
— Judd Apatow 🇺🇦 (@JuddApatow) January 30, 2018
While numerous celebrities have begun to distance themselves from Allen, some stating they’ve regretted working with him and will donate their salaries made from his projects, Keaton’s shielding of Allen follows Alec Baldwin’s attack of Dylan. On Sunday, Baldwin compared Dylan’s recounting of child molestation to the false claims accusing a man of rape in the novel To Kill A Mockingbird. Baldwin has since deleted the “Alec Baldwin Foundation” account he had tweeted the messages from.