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Hachette Employees Walk Out In Protest Of Woody Allen’s Upcoming Memoir

FILE PHOTO: Director Woody Allen arrives for a screening of the film “Wonder Wheel” in New York

Reuters/ Brendan McDermid

Marlo Safi Culture Reporter
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Employees of Hachette Book Group walked out of the company’s U.S. offices Thursday in protest of Woody Allen’s forthcoming memoir and in solidarity with Dylan Farrow, who alleges Allen, her father, molested her as a child.

Staff at Little, Brown and Company, a Hachette imprint, circulated a memo about the walkout saying employees “stand with Ronan and Dylan’s Farrow and survivors of sexual assault,” the Daily Beast reported. 

Farrow’s brother, Ronan Farrow — winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on Harvey Weinstein’s sexual misconduct and best-selling author of “Catch and Kill” — cut ties with his publisher, Hachette Book Group, after it announced that one of its divisions was publishing Allen’s autobiography in April, the New York Times reported Wednesday. 

“As you and I worked on ‘Catch and Kill’” — a book “in part about the damage Woody Allen did to my family, you were secretly planning to publish a book by the person who committed those acts of sexual abuse,” Ronan said in an email to Michael Pietsch, the chief executive of Hachette, according to the New York Times.

“Obviously I can’t in good conscience work with you any more,” he wrote at the end of his message. “Imagine this were your sister.”

Dylan Farrow, 32, alleges Allen sexually assaulted her when she was 7 years old in 1992. Allen has consistently denied the allegations and was never charged, according to CNN.

Ronan defended his sister in a Hollywood Reporter article in 2016, where he says that “it hurts my sister every time one of her heroes like Louis C.K., or a star her age, like Miley Cyrus, works with Woody Allen. Personal is exactly what it is — for my sister, and for women everywhere with allegations of sexual assault that have never been vindicated by a conviction.” (RELATED: I Would Consider Working With Him Again’: Jeff Goldblum Defends Woody Allen After Sexual Abuse Allegation)

Grand Central Publishing, a division of Hachette, announced it would publish Allen’s memoir, “Apropos of Nothing,” which reportedly comes after a series of rejections from publishers following the allegations from Dylan, according to the Washington Post.