"Stepmom" star Susan Sarandon slammed veteran actor and filmmaker Woody Allen in Cannes on May 15, Sunday, amid renewed debate about allegations of sexual assault against him. His "Cafe Society" opened the festival on May 11, Wednesday.
"I think he sexually assaulted a child, and I don't think that's right," Seattle Times quoted the actress as saying.
The 69-year-old Academy Award winner was speaking at a "Woman in Motion" talk when she addressed the accusations surrounding Allen. She declined to comment further on the subject.
The 80-year-old's personal life has come into the spotlight once again after his son Ronan Farrow, a journalist, penned an essay for The Hollywood Reporter to criticize the media for staying silent on the allegations that the filmmaker had sexually assaulted his daughter Dylan Furrow in 1992. She was just seven years old at the time.
Ronan even drew a link between his father's case and that of Bill Cosby since both have been accused of sexual abuse but not been convicted. Dylan herself had raised those allegations back in 2014 when she penned an open letter to the media saying that she finds positive portrayals of Allen painful.
Allen had long denied the allegations that he abused Dylan as a child. He claimed that she is been manipulated by her mother and his ex-wife Mia Farrow.
Sarandon is not the only person to take a jab at Allen during the ongoing Cannes film festival. The first reference to the allegations came during the opening night festivities itself, when Laurent Lafitte, a French comedian, reportedly directed a rape joke at the filmmaker. His comments drew gasps from the audience as he compared Allen to fugitive filmmaker Roman Polanski. Later, Allen said to have remarked that he was not offended by the joke.
Sarandon has been known to be critical of the veteran comedian previously as well. Mocking his relationship with much-younger wife Soon-Yi Previn, Mia's daughter from a previous marriage, the "Enchanted" actress famously declared earlier that he always had "a reputation for being with younger girls."
Meanwhile, watch the trailer of Allen's "Café Society" below: