Woody Allen has suggested he should be the “poster boy” for the #MeToo movement, due to his track record with the actresses he’s worked with in the past.
Speaking to the Argentinian news show Periodismo Para Todos, Allen addressed the sexual abuse allegations made against him by his daughter, Dylan Farrow, which he has always vehemently denied.
He said: “This is something that has been thoroughly looked at 25 years ago by all the authorities and everybody came to the conclusion that it was untrue.
“And that was the end and I’ve gone on with my life. For it to come back now, it’s a terrible thing to accuse a person of. I’m a man with a family and my own children. So, of course it’s upsetting.”
During the interview, Allen voiced his support for the prolific actresses who have spoken out in the wave of the #MeToo movement, but admitted he was “bothered” to be constantly “lumped in with… these terrible harassers”.
“What bothers me is that I get linked in with them,” he said. “People who have been accused by 20 women, 50 women, 100 women of abuse and abuse and abuse.
“And I, who was only accused by one woman in a child custody case, which was looked at and proven to be untrue, I get lumped in with these people.”
Allen concluded: “I should be the poster boy for the #MeToo movement because I have worked in movies for 50 years.
“I’ve worked with hundreds of actresses and not a single one - big ones, famous ones, ones starting out - have ever, ever suggested any kind of impropriety at all. I’ve always had a wonderful record with them.”
Earlier this year, Dylan Farrow gave her first ever television interview to detail the allegations of sexual abuse against her estranged father.
The director was investigated over a 1992 claim by his daughter that he sexually assaulted her at the family’s Connecticut home.
Prosecutors did not charge him over the allegations, which he claims had been fabricated by his former partner Mia Farrow.
In 2014, Dylan Farrow wrote an open letter alleging she had been molested by Allen - but he responded to the claims calling them “untrue and disgraceful”.