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Sean Penn says he's 'very suspicious' of the #MeToo movement

Sean Penn (Credit: Taylor Jewell/Invision/AP)
Sean Penn (Credit: Taylor Jewell/Invision/AP)

Sean Penn has said that he is ‘very suspcious’ of the #MeToo campaign, saying that it aims to divide men and women.

Penn made the remarks during an interview on the Today show in the US.

Speaking to host Natalie Morales, he said: “This is a movement that was largely shouldered by a kind of receptacle of the salacious.

“We don’t know what’s a fact in many of the cases. Salacious is as soon as you call something a movement that is really a series of many individual accusers, victims, accusations, some of which are unfounded. The spirit of much of what has been the #MeToo movement is to divide men and women.

“I don’t want it to be a trend, and I’m very suspicious of a movement that gets glommed on to in great stridency and rage and without nuance.

“I think it’s too black and white. In most things that are very important, it’s really good to just slow down.”

Countering his comments, Morales offered that ‘women would say it’s united women’.

Penn replied that having spoken to women ‘of all walks of life’ about it, that ‘there’s a common sense that is not represented at all in the discussion when it comes to the media discussion of it’.

The actor was sat next to actress Natascha McElhone, his co-star on new Hulu show The First, who remaining stony-faced throughout.

She said: “Of course it’s terrific that they’ve put a spotlight on it, but now… we need to go into the places where this is happening behind closed doors, and it’s not exposed, and those voices aren’t being heard.”

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