Bill Cosby, Roman Polanski Get Kicked Out Of The Movie Academy
Bill Cosby and Roman Polanski, both guilty of sexual misconduct, have been nixed off the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
The board of governors, which had been adopting a new Standards of Conduct after the waves of women came out accusing film mogul Harvey Weinstein of sexual misconduct, voted and has decided to boot the actor and the director out of their organization.
"The Board continues to encourage ethical standards that require members to uphold the Academy's values of respect for human dignity," the Academy said in a statement.
The code of conduct stated that serious and grave matters should be referred to the board of governors. The board will have the final say on whether to remove a member or not.
Polanski's Case
Polanski, whose handiwork includes The Ghost Writer, Chinatown, and Tess, has had a lot of prestigious awards he earned because of his masterpieces. The 84-year-old five time Oscar nominee will get to keep his Oscar he won for The Pianist, but wasn't able to personally get it, though, because he flew out of the United States in the '70s.
The director pleaded guilty of five charges he was facing for having sex with a 13-year-old girl. After which, he was put behind bars for more than a month before he went to France and has since lived there.
Cosby's Case
The news for Cosby, meanwhile, came just days after he was convicted on April 26 in Pennsylvania. The case was filed by Andrea Constand, who revealed that in 2004, the actor, dubbed as the America's Dad, drugged her before sexually assaulting her in his mansion.
The case was the lone filed against the 80-year-old actor from The Cosby Show, even if there were many women who came out accusing him of sexual misconduct with the same details as Constand. Cosby is awaiting his sentencing but he could face up to 30 years in jail. His honorary degrees from Yale University and Temple University were also rescinded.
So was the case for disgraced producer Weinstein in October last year, when the academy also voted him out following the decades-old sexual harassment allegations by throngs of women, such as high-profile celebrities Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie, Ashley Judd, and the latest to reveal, Cate Blanchett, all of which he had denied. Before this came, a petition asking for his removal from the academy was signed by more than 116,500 people.
