Spike Lee feels for his friend, Woody Allen, who’s been accused of child sexual abuse for years by his adopted daughter. Spike recently spoke to Michael Riedel and Len Berman on 710 WOR’s “In The Morning” about his new Netflix film, Da 5 Bloods. During their conversation, Spike came to the defence of his friend and fellow director, whom he believes has been some kind of victim of “cancel culture.”

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“I’d just like to say Woody Allen is a great, great filmmaker and this cancel thing is not just Woody,” he said. “When we look back on it we are going to see that—short of killing someone—you can’t just erase someone like they never existed. Woody is a friend of mine…and I know he’s going through it right now.”

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Back in 2017, Woody’s adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow, wrote an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times detailing the alleged sexual abuse he committed against her when she was a child. “I have long maintained that when I was 7 years old, Woody Allen led me into an attic, away from the babysitters who had been instructed never to leave me alone with him,” she wrote. “He then sexually assaulted me. I told the truth to the authorities then, and I have been telling it, unaltered, for more than 20 years.”

During his appearance on “In The Morning,” Spike also spoke on the current protests against systemic racism that have been happening all over the world in recent weeks. “What is uplifting to me is that people are marching all over this God’s Earth for Black Lives Matter,” he said. “There’s definitely something in the air…people come together, people want police reform, people want justice and I think we are in a special moment in the USA.”

R. Kelly‘s indictment in Chicago has been revised to include further sexual abuse allegations against a new victim, but it appears to have removed a previous victim from the case. The new indictment filed by federal prosecutors on Thursday is quite similar to the original, but new charges allege that Kelly enticed a minor “to engage in sexual activity for which any person can be charged with a criminal offence, namely, aggravated criminal sexual abuse” between 1997 and 2000. During the revision, a victim previously identified as “Minor 2,” was removed, and is now identified as “Individual D.”

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Kelly has been ordered to appear for arraignment at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse in Chicago’s Loop due to these new charges. His trial in Chicago set for April, then, will likely be rescheduled. Kelly is still facing similar indictments in Brooklyn and charges in Minnesota, and currently resides in at Chicago’s Metropolitan Correctional Center, where he has been held since his arrest last July.

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In the Chicago indictment, Kelly is facing charges of child pornography and obstruction of justice. The Brooklyn indictment includes allegations of racketeering, and was recently revised as well to add accusations that he obtained fake identification to marry 15-year-old Aaliyah in 1994. Last month, the court ruled that Kelly’s lawyers would have to wait to learn the identities of two of his accusers, as prosecutors believe that Kelly could interfere with his case from behind bars. Kelly allegedly has access to an “unmonitored line” in order to make unrecorded phone calls, and has been accused of smuggling a letter into the federal prison.

His Chicago trial is scheduled for April, while his New York trial will take place in July.

Immediately following R. Kelly‘s most recent arrest, his alleged girlfriends Joycelyn Savage and Azriel Clary stayed by his side. They made appearances at his court date and even defended him during the infamous, shout-filled Gayle King interview. As time has progressed, a shift has occurred now that Azriel has found her own voice and freedom. She’s previously stated that she was planning on sharing her story, and in her first tell-all interview, the young woman sat down with The Sun to discuss the abuse she says she endured at the hands of the music icon.

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“He beat me with a shoe, a size 12 foot Air Force One and he beat me all over which felt like hours and I was welped all the way from my neck down,” she said in the video. She said she met him when she was 17-years-old after someone in Kelly’s entourage slipped her the singer’s phone number. “That was the start of everything.”

“He has girlfriends in every city, he has flings in every city,” Azriel said, adding that there about three women in every state. “That lets you know how many women are probably out there and that’s not even hitting it on the nail.” She also suggested that Kelly uses a form of blackmail to keep people under his control. “He makes everyone do very degrading stuff, whether on film or writing it down, he makes them sign it. And I think a lot of women are ashamed or embarrassed to come out because of stuff like that. Because it’ll be incriminating them. There’s so much stuff. He has letters of people saying that they’ve stole from him.”

She continued, “He has letters from people saying that they’ve been molested or touched by their parents or their brothers or a family member. He even has people on film molesting their younger nieces or younger brothers. And so, I know a lot of women out there are embarrassed, and are humiliated, and are ashamed to come out because, ‘This man had that much power to control me, to molest my them younger niece or to molest my younger brother,’” she said putting herself in their shoes.

“Personally, had I ever done anything like that, I would be entirely too ashamed to come forward. Thankfully, I’ve never been in that situation. But have I seen it done to other women? Yes, I have,” Azriel stated. She alleges that she couldn’t do anything or make decisions without his approval, even if she had to go to the restroom. He reportedly made her cut off her friends because he accused her of “keeping things from him.” Later, he allegedly beat her with the shoe.

She broke down in tears as she spoke about her family who she was estranged from for years. In recent months, Azriel has reconnected with her loved ones and has been actively sharing happy family photos of her reunion with her parents.

You can watch the clip here.

The hype around On The Record, the documentary highlighting numerous women who have accused Russell Simmons of sexual assault, made its premiere at The Sundance Film Festival. It’s reported that at the conclusion of the film, the audience gave it a standing ovation, but while it was a hit at the festival, one of the women featured in the documentary has come forward to speak out about why Oprah Winfrey was absent.

We’ve previously reported that Oprah was once an executive producer for the documentary, but shortly after that announcement was made, the OWN network mogul shared that she would no longer be working with On The Record‘s filmmakers. There was a movement against Oprah, urging her to remove herself from the project, and she even admitted in an interview that she felt pressured by Russell Simmons who she spoke with directly. However, Oprah insisted that it wasn’t Simmons or social media criticism that caused her to back away. Instead, she said, the filmmakers were moving in a creative direction that she didn’t agree with and she couldn’t have her name on a project that she didn’t believe in.

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Sil Lai Abrams, author and activist, alleges that back in 1994, Simmons raped her. She’s shared her story multiple times, including in a The Hollywood Reporter exposé, and now she’s stepping forward once again for On The Record. “I was not surprised that Oprah pulled out,” Abrams told Deadline. “When I learned that and the news broke accidentally…people put the pieces together and realized that the film was about Russell and Drew and other survivors. I knew there was an army that existed of Michael Jackson fans who were still very angry at her (Oprah) for hosting the Leaving Neverland screening. And so when Russell and 50 Cent did their social media thing, there was a population already existing that was ready to jump on the train and use this film as a way into Ms. Winfrey’s involvement as a way to tear her down.”

Abrams continued, “She was hammered (online): ‘Oprah has a vendetta against black men.’ Here she participated in the Leaving Neverland documentary and a year later she was doing this film. Nobody said that Russell was innocent. Everybody said Michael (Jackson) was innocent and Oprah has a vendetta against black men. That’s quite telling about what transpired and the potential motivations here as to why we’re in the situation that we are in now, which is one of those things is kind of a blessing. Because if you want to have an ally, if you want someone in the trenches, you want someone that’s going to stand up when things get hot and to their credit, [filmmakers] Amy (Ziering) and Kirby (Dick) stood.”

Check out Oprah’s previous explanations with CBS This Morning below.