CBS condemns itself for giving Woody Allen ‘legitimacy’ in interview

A CBS Sunday Morning segment criticized an interview with Woody Allen conducted by the same network, saying it gave the famed director and alleged sexual abuser “legitimacy.”

Erin Moriarty, who hosted the morning show, gave examples of controversial musicians, comedians and filmmakers, including Allen, who had been thrust out of social or professional circles by means of so-called “cancel culture.”

In the segment broadcast, art critic Aruna D’Souza said that “if someone is there being interviewed, they’re given a kind of legitimacy just by the fact that they’re being interviewed on a big newscast.”

The interview with Allen was conducted last year but was only released on Sunday on CBS’s streaming platform, Paramount+. Its delay was blamed on the “active news cycle” with the COVID-19 pandemic raging at the time, the Hollywood Reporter said.

The interview itself included Allen reiterating denials he has made over the years to the sexual abuse allegations against him.

In February and March, HBO broadcast a four-part series titled “Allen v. Farrow.”

Actress Mia Farrow, left, and her daughter Dylan Farrow attend the TIME 100 Gala, celebrating the 100 most influential people in the world, at Frederick P. Rose Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center, in New York, on April 26, 2016. (Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

In it, Dylan Farrow, Allen’s adopted daughter with actress Mia Farrow, repeats her allegation that Allen sexually assaulted her in August 1992 when she was seven years old.

Allen had described the new documentary as “a hatchet job riddled with falsehoods.”

Many actors have distanced themselves from Allen since the onset of #MeToo movement in 2017 and the publication of a column by Dylan Farrow.

In 2019, Allen settled a multimillion-dollar breach of contract lawsuit against Amazon, which canceled a four-movie deal with him over the allegations.