Spike Lee issued an apology Saturday following comments he made in a radio interview where he defended Woody Allen and admonished “this cancel [culture] thing.”
“My words were WRONG,” Lee tweeted Saturday after his remarks drew criticism. “I do not and will not tolerate sexual harassment, assault or violence. Such treatment causes real damage that can’t be minimized.”
In an interview with New York radio station WOR asked Lee about the situation regarding fellow filmmaker Woody Allen, who had his planned film releases canceled and his autobiography Apropos of Nothing dropped by its original publisher following the reemergence of molestation accusations raised by his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow. Allen has long denied the allegations.
“I’d just like to say Woody Allen is a great, great filmmaker,” Lee said in Friday’s interview. “This cancel thing is not just Woody, and I think that when we look back on it, we’re going to see that — short of killing somebody — I don’t know you can just erase somebody like they never existed. He’s a friend of mine, a fellow Knicks fan, and I know he’s going through it right now.”
However, on Saturday, Lee said of his comments the previous day, “I deeply apologize.”
Lee’s latest film, the Vietnam War drama Da 5 Bloods, premiered on Netflix on Friday. In a Daily Show interview in support of the film, Lee called out Donald Trump for calling George Floyd protesters “unpatriotic.”
