CULTURE

Dylan Farrow Has Some Words for Scarlett Johansson and ‘The View’

“Scarlett has a long way to go in understanding the issue she claims to champion.”


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CBS

A few hours after Scarlett Johansson made headlines for her defense of Woody Allen, his daughter, Dylan Farrow, who accused the director of molesting her when she was seven years-old, decided to speak up.

“How do I feel about Woody Allen? I love Woody,” Johansson had told The Hollywood Reporter. “I believe him, and I would work with him anytime.”

“I see Woody whenever I can, and I have had a lot of conversations with him about it,” she continued. “I have been very direct with him, and he’s very direct with me. He maintains his innocence, and I believe him.”

And now Farrow has issued a response. Re-tweeting a missive from the Los Angeles Times that joked about the rough day Johansson’s publicist must be having, Farrow pointed out that the actor, a vocal supporter of #TimesUp, was something of a hypocrite.

“Because if we’ve learned anything from the past two years it’s that you definitely should believe male predators who ‘maintain their innocence’ without question,” she wrote. “Scarlett has a long way to go in understanding the issue she claims to champion.”

And on Thursday morning, Joy Behar stood by Allen while hosting The View. “When somebody is accused of such a heinous crime as child molestation, you say to yourself, what do I believe?” said Behar, who worked with Allen on his Amazon series Crisis in Six Scenes.

“The Connecticut State Police brought in an investigative team from the Yale New Haven hospital, all right?” she said. “Their six-month long inquiry, which included medical examinations, concluded that Dylan had not been molested.”

Behar also noted that Farrow’s brother Moses has publicly defended his father against allegations of child abuse, and compared the case to that of Al Franken, who resigned from the Senate after he was accused of sexual misconduct.

“I’m not defending Woody’s behavior with Soon-Yi, that was deplorable,” Behar continued. “It’s creepy, but it’s not a crime. She was over 18 apparently when he married her. But this, with the little girl, I mean he has been exonerated by the experts.”

Co-host Sunny Hostin defended Farrow, pointing out that in 1993 a judge “found that [Farrow] had to be protected against [Allen’s] advances towards her.” “I will tell you in my experience, because I spent the majority of my career prosecuting child sexual predators, so I consider myself somewhat of an expert in this area,”

“Abusers groom their character witnesses just as thoroughly as they groom their victims,” Hostin continued. “Woody wants [Johansson] to believe him. He’s probably very good at this.”

Farrow responded to Behar on Twitter, and thanked Hostin. “@JoyVBehar saying that the experts have exonerated Woody Allen is utterly false and a truly abhorrent mischaracterization,” she wrote “Thank you to @sunny for pushing back on the false narrative Woody Allen has tried so hard to perpetuate.”