CANNES, France, May 16 (UPI) — Actress Susan Sarandon bashed director Woody Allen at the Cannes Film Festival Sunday over allegations he sexually abused his step-daughter.
Sarandon was speaking during a panel on women in film with her “Thelma & Louise” co-star Geena Davis, when she made the comments.
“I think he sexually assaulted a child and I don’t think that’s right,” Sarandon said. “I have nothing good to say about him,” she added. “I don’t want to go there.”
Allen’s latest film “Cafe Society” opened the festival Wednesday night. Before its premiere, Allen’s son Ronan Farrow, wrote an op-ed that slammed the media for not looking more closely at abuse allegations made about the director.
At the premiere, French comedienne Laurent Lafitte ramped up the situation, making a joke about the long-standing rape allegations against director Roman Polanski that also referenced that Allen might have molested his step-daughter Dylan Farrow when she was 7.
Dylan wrote about the alleged abuse in a New York Times story in 2014, which Allen’s lawyers flatly denied.
But her brother Ronan was insistent.
“We are witnessing a sea change in how we talk about sexual assault and abuse,” Ronan wrote in the Hollywood Reporter. “But there is more work to do to build a culture where women like my sister are no longer treated as if they are invisible. It’s time to ask some hard questions.”
