Justice

Kristen Stewart Defends Her Decision to Work With Woody Allen

May 11th 2016

When Kristin Stewart revealed on Monday why she chose to work with director Woody Allen, despite the revived child molestation allegations against him, some argue she's triggered a fear faced by many sexual assault survivors.

Stewart told Variety that though she was initially concerned about allegations that Allen molested his 7-year-old daughter, Dylan Farrow, she eventually decided the story might not be true.

Here's what Stewart told Variety about her decision to star in Allen's new film "Café Society"

“I was like, ‘What do you think? We don’t know any of these people involved. I can personalize situations, which would be very wrong.’ At the end of the day, Jesse and I talked about this. If we were persecuted for the amount of shit that’s been said about us that’s not true, our lives would be over. The experience of making the movie was so outside of that, it was fruitful for the two of us to go on with it.” — Kristen Stewart

Jezebel's Madeleine Davies wrote that Stewart seemed to be rationalizing her decision to work with Allen so she could "sleep at night/collect that pay check."

Stewart also earned a fair share of criticism from Twitter users.

Where is this backlash coming from?

Though unintentional, Stewart appears to confirm what many sexual assault survivors fear: that people won't believe them.

According to the Maryland Coalition Against Sexual Assault, "only 15.8 to 35 percent of all sexual assaults are reported to the police." Many survivors reported fears over a lack of proof among the main reasons they didn't go to the police.

Here's some background on the sexual assault allegations against Allen.

Allen has never been found guilty of a crime but a judge did say in court documents that Allen's behavior toward Dylan Farrow was “grossly inappropriate and that measures must be taken to protect her," according to Vanity Fair.

In column published on Wednesday for the Hollywood Reporter, Allen's estranged son Ronan Farrow notes that news outlets often inaccurately report that charges against Allen were "dropped." In fact, Farrow notes, "the prosecutor announced publicly that he had "probable cause" to prosecute Allen, and attributed the decision not to do so to 'the fragility of the child victim.'"

Further, he alleges that when his sister was looking to publish an article about allegedly being molested by Allen, many publications balked at running it for fear of reprisal.

"There were too many relationships at stake," Farrow wrote.

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