Woody Allen, the Oscar-winning director long shadowed by his own controversies, just reignited fury across the internet by describing Jeffrey Epstein—the convicted sex offender and accused child trafficker—as “charming and personable” and insisting he “couldn’t have been nicer” during their repeated dinner gatherings.T

Woody Allen just called Jeffrey Epstein “charming and personable” — and the internet is losing its mind.

In a September 2025 interview with The Sunday Times, the 89-year-old filmmaker Woody Allen described his late neighbor and former dinner host Jeffrey Epstein as a “charming and personable” man who “couldn’t have been nicer.” Allen recounted first meeting Epstein in 2010 at a dinner party honoring Prince Andrew, shortly after Epstein’s 2008 conviction for soliciting sex from a minor. Despite Epstein’s status as a registered sex offender, Allen and his wife Soon-Yi Previn became regular guests at his Upper East Side townhouse gatherings, which Allen fondly remembered as featuring “illustrious people” like scientists, Nobel laureates, and intellectuals.

Allen explained that Epstein presented himself as reformed, philanthropic, and focused on supporting cutting-edge science after his legal troubles, which he claimed involved extortion. “We never, ever, saw Jeffrey with underage girls,” Allen added in later remarks, emphasizing that Epstein always appeared with adult girlfriends. These comments resurfaced dramatically in December 2025 when Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released a trove of photos from Epstein’s estate, showing intimate scenes of Allen and Epstein dining together and interacting on a film set—images that deepened public scrutiny of their relationship.

The backlash was swift and fierce. Social media erupted with outrage, memes, and accusations of tone-deafness, especially given Allen’s own history of controversy—including longstanding allegations of sexual abuse by his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow (which he denies) and his marriage to Soon-Yi Previn. Many drew parallels between Allen’s defense of Epstein and broader patterns of elite impunity in the Epstein scandal. Critics flooded platforms like Reddit and X (formerly Twitter), calling the remarks “unforced error” or worse, with some labeling it as evidence that predators recognize their own.

Amid renewed calls for accountability following Virginia Giuffre’s posthumous memoir Nobody’s Girl—which highlighted Epstein’s 2010 events attended by figures like Allen—the statement has reignited debates about separating art from the artist. At 90, Allen shows no signs of regret, insisting the dinners were “always interesting.” For many online, however, his words are a stark reminder that the Epstein network’s charm offensive once fooled—or at least entertained—the powerful, even as victims suffered in silence.