Woody Allen: Weinstein affair ‘sad for everybody involved’

Veteran filmmaker Woody Allen said Sunday that the Harvey Weinstein affair was  “sad for everybody involved,” including for Weinstein, drawing immediate condemnation from one of the women who has accused the disgraced Hollywood mogul of rape.

An avalanche of claims has surfaced since the publication last week of an explosive New York Times report alleging a history of sexually abusive behavior by Weinstein dating back decades. Five women have accused Weinstein of rape.

“Tragic for the poor women that were involved, sad for Harvey that his life is so messed up. There’s no winners in that, it’s just very, very sad and tragic for those poor women that had to go through that,” Allen told the BBC.

Actress Rose McGowan, who on Friday accused Weinstein of raping her, did not mince words in her reaction to Allen’s comments, tweeting simply, “You vile little worm.”

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McGowan last year said that she had been raped by a “studio head.” The New Yorker expose that ran Tuesday reported that Weinstein had allegedly sexually assaulted three women, though the third woman was unnamed. The New York Times earlier reported that Weinstein paid a financial settlement of $100,000 to McGowan in 1997 over an incident in a hotel room at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah.

On Friday McGowan explicitly stated that “HW raped me,” in a series a tweets addressed to Amazon chief Jeff Bezos, accusing his studio of ignoring her accusations.

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“Any allegations of non-consensual sex are unequivocally denied by Mr. Weinstein,” Weinstein’s representative Sallie Hofmeister said Thursday.

Allen has also faced accusations of sexual misconduct. His ex-wife actress Mia Farrow has said the director pressured reporters to drop investigations into his alleged sexual abuse of Dylan Farrow, his then 7-year-old daughter.

The 1992 allegation came shortly after Allen became involved with Mia Farrow’s adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn. Allen, then in his mid-50s, was not the adoptive father of Previn, who was about 19 at the time. The two married in 1997 and have two adopted daughters.

Allen also said that he hoped the saga would not lead to a backlash against men.

“You don’t want it to lead to a witch-hunt atmosphere, a Salem atmosphere, where every guy in an office who winks at a woman is suddenly having to call a lawyer to defend himself. That’s not right either. But sure, you hope that something like this could be transformed into a benefit for people rather than just a sad or tragic situation.”

Allen worked with Weinstein on a number of films and said he had heard rumors, but nothing “serious.”

“No one ever came to me or told me horror stories with any real seriousness,” Allen said. “And they wouldn’t, because you are not interested in it. You are interested in making your movie. But you do hear a million fanciful rumors all the time. And some turn out to be true and some — many — are just stories about this actress, or that actor.”

British actress Lysette Anthony on Sunday became the fifth woman to accuse the disgraced Hollywood mogul of raping her in the 1980s. She had appeared in Woody Allen’s 1992 film “Husbands and Wives.”

The producer’s wife, English fashion designer Georgina Chapman, has said she plans to divorce him.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences expelled Weinstein on Saturday amid mounting accusations of sexual harassment, assault and rape.

Weinstein’s films have received more than 300 Oscar nominations and 81 statuettes, according to The Weinstein Co., the movie and TV production company he co-founded with his brother Bob and which now is struggling to survive the scandal.

In an interview published Saturday by The Hollywood Reporter, Bob Weinstein called for his “sick and depraved” brother to be kicked out of the academy.

Weinstein, himself an Oscar winner as a producer of the 1998 Best Picture “Shakespeare in Love,” was ousted a week ago from The Weinstein Co.

Speaking more broadly, Bob Weinstein added, “I want him to get the justice that he deserves.”

On Wednesday, Harvey Weinstein’s membership in the British Academy of Film and Television Arts was revoked.