Spike Lee defends Woody Allen

https://twitter.com/EW/status/1271832886103195651

Spike Lee defends Woody Allen against 'this cancel thing': 'Woody's a friend of mine'

By Tyler Aquilina June 13, 2020 at 11:51 AM EDT

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FRAZER HARRISON/GETTY IMAGES; VENTURELLI/WIREIMAGE

Woody Allen can count Spike Lee among his supporters in the entertainment industry.

In an interview for New York's WOR 710 radio on Friday, the Da 5 Bloods director voiced his support for Allen, noting he still calls the embattled filmmaker a friend. Asked to weigh in on the controversy around Allen, Lee said, "I'd just like to say Woody Allen's a great, great filmmaker, and this cancel thing is not just Woody. And I think that when we look back on it, [we're] gonna see that, short of killing somebody, I don't if you can just erase somebody like they never existed. Woody's a friend of mine... I know he's going through it right now."

Allen's adopted daughter Dylan Farrow has repeatedly accused the director of molesting her when she was a child, which Allen has consistently denied. The allegations first came to light in the early 1990s but have gained renewed attention in recent years in the wake of the #MeToo movement. Earlier this year, Hachette Books canceled plans to publish Allen's memoir Apropos of Nothing after substantial backlash, including an employee walkout. Allen subsequently released the book through a different publisher.

On the radio interview, Lee also spoke about the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests in the wake of George Floyd's killing by a white police officer. "What's uplifting to me is that people are marching all over this God's earth for Black Lives Matter," Lee said. "There's definitely something in the air... I think we're in a very special moment in the history of the United States of America."

Lee's new film Da 5 Bloods is currently streaming on Netflix.