American Apparel Honcho Denies Playing Dirty With Woody
Serge Haouzi/Maxppp/ZUMA Press
Woody Allen might find a movie in here somewhere, but we're still not sure whether it's Crimes and Misdemeanors or Hollywood Ending.
The founder of American Apparel is denying that he's playing up salacious details of the director's personal life to beat back a $10 million lawsuit Allen has filed against the company. Allen claims American Apparel used his image from Annie Hall for billboards and online advertising without permission.
"The media has misinformed the public that American Apparel supposedly plans to make Woody Allen's personal life the central focus of our defense. This is false," American Apparel CEO Dov Charney writes on the company's blog. "It has also been reported that American Apparel intends to call Mia Farrow or Soon Yi as witnesses in the upcoming trial. This also is false."
Last month, attorneys for the 73-year-old filmmaker accused Charney and American Apparel of seeking documents about Allen's personal life, including his controversial relationship with Soon Yi, the adopted daughter of Farrow and director André Previn whom Woody wound up marrying in a headline-capturing scandal.
Charney's denial is more like a backpedal, however.
While Allen's person life may not be the "central focus," it is undoubtedly a focus, since company lawyers submitted court papers explicitly asking for documents about Allen's sexcapades, ostensibly to show Allen's image wasn't worth the $10 million he claimed.
The request prompted Allen's camp to file a scathing rebuttal calling the company's strategy a "despicable effort" and a "scorched earth approach" to intimidate him.
Now Charney claims he never wanted to use smear tactics. Honest.
"I have deep respect for Mr. Allen who is a source of inspiration to me," he insists. "The billboards and images from the Annie Hall movie were intended to be a parody/social statement and comedic satire to provoke discussion and public discourse about the baseless claims that had been made against American Apparel and myself, society's reaction to lawsuits that delve into an individual's private sexual life and the media's sensationalism of such matters."
An attorney for Allen could not be reached for comment. The case is scheduled to go to trial May 18.
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