Alec Baldwin ramped up his defense of Woody Allen on Sunday, suggesting that the director's daughter, Dylan Farrow, is lying about being sexually abused by her father, and is using emotion to manipulate people into believing her.
Farrow has repeatedly claimed that Allen sexually assaulted her in the attic of their family home when she was 7 years old. Connecticut's state attorney launched an investigation in the early 1990s, around the time of the alleged abuse, and concluded that he had enough probable cause to prosecute Allen, but never brought the case to trial in order to protect the fragility of the “child victim."
Allen has always emphatically denied the allegations.
But after the eruption of the #MeToo movement, Farrow wrote an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times questioning why the "revolution" spared her father, especially since she has stood by her story for decades.
As a result, a slew of actors denounced the famed filmmaker, writing statements illustrating their regret for having worked with him. Some have promised to donate their earnings from Allen's films to nonprofits that support sexual abuse survivors.
Last week, Baldwin called Farrow's allegations "sad and unfair" and pointed out that no charges were ever filed against Allen. Then, on Sunday, the actor compared Farrow to Mayella Ewell, a character in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird who lied about being raped by a black man.
Baldwin also suggested that Farrow was using emotion to manipulate people to believe her story.
"[One] of the most effective things Dylan Farrow has in her arsenal is the 'persistence of emotion,'" Baldwin tweeted. "Like Mayella in [To Kill a Mockingbird], her tears/exhortations [are] meant [to] shame u [into] belief in her story. But I need more than that before I destroy [someone], regardless of their fame. I need a lot more."