Actor Alec Baldwin has announced that he will interview film director Woody Allen, who has all but disappeared from public view after the release last year of an HBO docuseries examining allegations from his adopted daughter that he sexually abused her when she was a child.
“Let me preface this by stating that I have ZERO INTEREST in anyone’s judgments and sanctimonious posts here,” Baldwin said Sunday in a video announcement on his Instagram account. “I am OBVIOUSLY someone who has my own set of beliefs and COULD NOT CARE LESS about anyone else’s speculation. If you believe that a trial should be conducted by way of an HBO documentary, that’s your issue.”
“I love you, Woody,” Baldwin said in the video post in which he announced the interview would take place on Instagram Live. “Instagram, I’m with Woody, Tuesday, 10:30. Be there.”
The interview comes after the 2021 release of the docuseries “Allen v. Farrow,” in which his adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow, and Dylan’s mother, Mia Farrow, elaborated on the sex abuse allegations they first cast in 1992.
“‘Allen v. Farrow’ included a never-before-seen home video of 7-year-old Farrow talking about the alleged assault shortly after she claims it occurred,” Variety reported. “During the #MeToo movement, his 2019 film ‘A Rainy Day in New York’ was dropped by Amazon Studios and Hachette Book Group refused to publish his memoir. Allen denies the allegations, and called them ‘untrue and disgraceful’ in a statement following the release of the docuseries.”
During Allen’s messy divorce from actress Mia Farrow, Dylan alleged that she was abused. While Allen was never criminally charged, presiding Justice Elliott Wilk wrote about the case that “credible testimony … prove[s] that Mr. Allen’s behavior toward Dylan was grossly inappropriate and that measures must be taken to protect her.”
After Allen, now 86, dated Farrow for a decade, the actress found nude pictures of her 21-year-old adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn, taken by Allen. The couple split, and Previn, 51, and Allen are now married.
In 2017, when film producer Harvey Weinstein was accused by numerous women of rape and sexual assault, Allen came to his defense, saying he was “sad” for Weinstein.
“The whole Harvey Weinstein thing is very sad for everybody involved,” he added. “Tragic for the poor women that were involved, sad for Harvey that [his] life is so messed up,” Allen said, according to the BBC.
Joseph Curl has covered politics for 35 years, including 12 years as White House correspondent for a national newspaper. He was also the a.m. editor of the Drudge Report for four years. Send tips to [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @josephcurl.