Following employee walkouts in protest of the decision to publish Woody Allen’s memoir, Hachette Book Group has decided to cancel Allen’s book Vanity Fair reported Friday.
“The decision to cancel Mr. Allen’s book was a difficult one,” the statement said according to Vanity Fair. “At HBG we take our relationships with authors very seriously, and do not cancel books lightly.”
The decision to cancel Allen’s book comes a day after Hachette employees staged a walkout in support of Dylan Farrow and sexual assault survivors. Farrow alleges Allen, her father, sexually abused her when she was seven. (RELATED: Hachette Employees Walk Out In Protest Of Woody Allen’s Upcoming Memoir)
#LittleBrownWalkout #HachetteWalkout – dozens of publishing employees take to the streets in protest over upcoming #WoodyAllen memoir ….see more on @DEADLINE pic.twitter.com/F2ZxnikV8N
— Dominic Patten (@DeadlineDominic) March 5, 2020
Ronan Farrow, her brother, had published his award-winning book “Catch and Kill” through Hachette, which had initially agreed to publish Allen’s book. Ronan sent an email to Hachette’s chief executive Michael Pietsch expressing his disappointment that the publisher was going through with publishing Allen’s book, the New York Times reported Wednesday. Allen’s book was set to be released April 7.
“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 wrote, according to the New York Times.
All rights to Allen’s book “Apropos of Nothing” will be returned to him, Vanity Fair reported.