Sarah Monahan has a ‘beef’ with Cate Blanchett over Hey Dad abuse

Australian actress Sarah Monahan has slammed fellow thespian Cate Blanchett for leading a protest against sexual abuse, with the former Hey Dad …! star claiming that Blanchett had in fact offered her support to sex abusers in the past.

Hollywood darling Blanchett was at the forefront of a group of 82 actresses and film workers who marched arm-in-arm at the Cannes Film Festival this week to call for a equality for women in the film industry, with some of the other stars (but not Blanchett) involved flouting the notoriously strict and sexist Cannes dress standard that has in the past prevented women from attending red carpet events if they were not wearing high heels.

The protest came in the wake of the #MeToo moment that saw many celebrities reveal they had been subjected to sexual abuse on film sets and within the film industry, and Blanchett has previously pledged her support for #MeToo.

But, writing an opinion piece for News Corp that was published on news.com.au, Monahan said that she was “just not buying” Blanchett as a champion of female victims of abuse. Admitting that it was a “personal beef” she had with the star, Monahan claimed that Blanchett had professed her love for her Australian agent Robin Gardener. 

“At the same time Robyn was sitting in a courtroom, watching her husband, and my abuser, as he was being tried for molesting several underage girls for sexual assault,” Monahan, 41, wrote.

Gardiner’s husband Robert Hughes was found guilty of 10 counts of sexual and indecent assault on four young girls, and jailed for at least six years in 2014. Monahan was abused for years by her on-screen father on the set of family show Hey Dad..!. She was just 10 years old when she was first sexually assaulted.

I was a little fired up yesterday, so I wrote this. https://t.co/X3pHHqcOYY https://t.co/X3pHHqcOYY

— Sarah Monahan (@TheSarahMonahan) May 15, 2018

Furthermore, Monahan claimed Blanchett had continued to support famous directors Roman Polanski and Woody Allen, despite both being accused of sexual abuse.

Monahan noted that Blanchett even named one of her sons Roman after film director Roman Polanski, who, in 1977, was arrested and charged with five offences against a 13-year-old girl. He fled the country before the case came to court and has never been on trial over the charges. It was only this month that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the group behind the Oscars, kicked Polanski out of its membership over the unresolved rape charges.

Asked in 2015 about how she had named her sons, Blanchett reportedly replied, “Roman was, I don’t know, Polanski, but it’s also the French word for book”

And in 2014 Blanchett won an Oscar for her role in Allen’s movie Blue Jasmine, the same year in which Allen’s adopted daughter Dylan Farrow wrote a open letter, published by The New York Times, in which she accused Allen of inappropriate sexual behaviour. Allen has repeatedly denied the allegations, which have been circulating since 1993. 

Questioned this year about her support for Allen, Blanchett reportedly said that she knew nothing of the long-running claims against him when she acted in his movie. “At the time, I said it’s a very painful and complicated situation for the family, which I hope they have the ability to resolve,” the actress reportedly said.

But Monahan didn’t confine her anger to Blanchett. She claimed in her opinion piece that the likes of Meryl Streep, Penelope Cruz and Natalie Portman had continued to work with men accused of sexual abuse, yet now were speaking out in support of the #MeToo movement.

“When I came out seven years ago, I was alone,” Monahan wrote. “I had to stand up, speak out, and none of these women who are now claiming that they’re all about changing the industry had a word to say to me, publicly or privately. There wasn’t an email, a tweet, a public word of solidarity for me or many of the girls in my case.”

She warned people to be cautious of women who chose to be involved in fighting sexual abuse in the entertainment industry simply because it’s now the “trendy” thing to do. “Basically, if you weren’t willing to stand behind someone when they spoke up before #MeToo, then I don’t trust you to stand in front of them now,” Monahan concluded.

Monahan is not the only one to have drawn attention to Blanchett’s involvement in the Cannes protest, with Fairfax writer Natalie Reilly re-examining the actresses involvement with Polanski and Allen in a piece this week, and claiming that Blanchett was an inappropriate leader for such a protest.

Starts at 60 has approached Blanchett’s agents for a response.

Does Sarah Monahan have a point? Are women in Hollywood simply speaking up because it’s the trendy thing to do?