It wasn’t so long ago that Justin Timberlake’s #TimesUp tweet got him slammed for hypocrisy.
Well, he tweeted what looked like an innocent question on Tuesday, and Dylan Farrow seized the opportunity to roast him.
Read the tweets for yourself and decide whether or not it was well-deserved.
On Tuesday, Justin Timberlake tweeted out a question:
“Random question: Can someone please explain the saying, ‘You just want your cake and to eat it too.’ What else am I about to do with a cake??”
Now, obviously, he’s trying to get to how that saying came about.
We would assume that it comes from many cakes being works of art. Colorful, full of writing, and perhaps even containing sculpted shapes made from frosting.
Cakes really are beautiful — and we just mean regular cakes. Then there are the cakes that you’ve seen on those cake-based reality shows over the years.
So it’s easily conceivable that someone would have had to explain to a young, distressed child that they cannot have their cake — this piece of ephemeral artwork — and also eat it.
Dylan Farrow decided to spell out her answer using an … example.
She tweeted her reply:
“The saying means, for example, you can’t support #TIMESUP and praise sexual predators at the same time.”
And, specifically:
“You can’t retain your credibility as an activist (i.e. – retain the cake) and, at the same time, praise a sexual predator (i.e. – eating the cake).”
That might be a little harsh, but she’s absolutely right. Praising and uplifting a known sex monster goes against everything that #TimesUp is supposed to represent.
In case you’re wondering what issue Dylan Farrow has with Justin Timberlake … let us refresh your memory.
JT is one of the leading stars in Woody Allen’s next film, Wonder Wheel, in which he’ll play a lifeguard being pursued by a mother and her estranged husband’s daughter.
Woody Allen is infamous for his films about older men pursuing younger women, but he’s also infamous for allegedly having molested his daughter (Dylan Farrow) and for definitely having married a woman, Soon-Yi, whom many view as his daughter.
So he got roasted for his #TimesUp post before the Golden Globes.
It sure struck a lot of folks as being majorly hypocritical.
Dylan Farrow, of course, is very close to this story.
The rest of us look on in disappointment as stars who should know better — Justin Timberlake, Selena Gomez, Blake Lively — have work with Woody Allen of their own volition.
But for Dylan Farrow, we’re talking about a man whom she accuses of transforming her life for the worst. You don’t get a second chance at childhood, folks. And the scars of childhood trauma stay with you for the rest of your life.
Just recently, Dylan Farrow spoke about how Woody Allen molested her — and it was the first time that she spoke about the terrible trauma on camera.
Justin Timberlake is talented and beautiful and charming, but that doesn’t excuse him for being tone-deaf on Twitter.
Watching her interview was hard. Despite herself, she cried during it.
It is difficult for abuse survivors to talk about the horrors that they experienced without actively reliving them.
(Either that or dissociating; either of which can be awkward in an interview)
None of us can make her life better or redo her childhood.
But surely the least that we can all do is refrain from lending aid and comfort to people accused of monstrous deeds.
Otherwise, their time will never actually be up.
