Director Roman Polanski blasted the #MeToo movement as “mass hysteria” and “total hypocrisy” in an interview conducted last week — just before he was booted from the Oscars academy.
“Everyone is trying to back this movement, mainly out of fear,” the 84-year-old said, according to the Agence France-Presse.
“I think it’s total hypocrisy,” he added. “I think this is the kind of mass hysteria that occurs in society from time to time…Sometimes it’s very dramatic, like the French Revolution or the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre in France, or sometimes it’s less bloody, like 1968 in Poland or McCarthyism in the US.”
The comments are set to be published this week in Newsweek Polska, the outlet’s Polish language weekly mag.
Polanski was kicked out of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences last week, along with comedian Bill Cosby, nearly 40 years after he pleaded guilty to raping a 13-year-old girl.
The Academy’s board of governors said they voted to expel the pair “in accordance with the organization’s Standards of Conduct.”
Polanski has claimed for decades that the sex between him and the teen was consensual.
He originally pleaded not guilty, but later agreed to a plea deal in exchange for just one charge. The fugitive filmmaker fled the US before his sentencing. He’s been allowed to live in France thanks to his dual Polish and French citizenships.
Many consider Polanski’s removal from the Academy to be a direct result of the #MeToo movement, which was spawned last year by the Harvey Weinstein scandal.
The language he used during his interview with Newsweek was very similar to what he said in response to his expulsion — calling it the “height of hypocrisy,” according to AFP.
Polanski’s lawyer has sent a letter to the Academy, asking them to reinstate him and threatening to sue if they don’t.
With Post Wires