This time, it was a complaint about Hachette Book Group dropping Woody Allen’s memoir. So far, the backlash appears muted, but King felt the need to clarify his position several times.

Pruchnie/Getty Images Staff of the Hachette Book Group walked out of their offices on Thursday to protest the company’s decision to publish the memoir of director and accused child molester Woody Allen. Ronan Farrow Cuts Ties With Book Publisher Hachette Over His Father Woody Allen's Memoir. Journalist Ronan Farrow attends the Hollywood Reporter's annual Women in Entertainment Breakfast Gala, on. Apropos of Nothing is a 2020 memoir by American filmmaker and humorist Woody Allen. The book was originally due to be published by Grand Central Publishing, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, in April 2020, but on March 6, 2020 Hachette said they would no longer publish it. Hachette Book Group on Friday dropped its plans to publish Woody Allen’s autobiography and said it would return all rights to the author, a day after its employees protested its deal with the.

Ronan Farrow, whose Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting on allegations of sexual abuse by Harvey Weinstein helped spark the #MeToo movement, said Tuesday that he will no longer work with Hachette Book Group because it is publishing a memoir by Woody Allen, his father.

Allen’s autobiography, titled Apropos of Nothing, is slated to be published on April 7 by Hachette’s Grand Central imprint. It is described as a “comprehensive account” of Allen’s personal and professional life, in which he “writes of his relationships with family, friends, and the loves of his life.” Grand Central Publishing did not immediately respond to TIME’s request for comment on Wednesday.

Allen’s adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow, has long accused him of molesting her in 1992, when she was 7. Allen has denied the allegations.

On Monday, Dylan Farrow called Hachette’s role in publishing Allen’s memoir “deeply upsetting to me personally and an utter betrayal of my brother whose brave reporting, capitalized on by Hachette, gave voice to numerous survivors of sexual assault by powerful men.”

Ronan Farrow’s book, Catch and Kill, was published in October by the Little, Brown imprint of Hachette. The book exposed abuses by powerful men and the network that helped silence their victims. It spent 11 weeks on the New York Times nonfiction best-seller list.

“I was disappointed to learn through press reports that Hachette, my publisher, acquired Woody Allen’s memoir after other major publishers refused to do so and concealed the decision from me and its own employees while we were working on Catch and Kill — a book about how powerful men, including Woody Allen, avoid accountability for sexual abuse,” Ronan Farrow said in a statement on Tuesday.

He criticized Hachette for allegedly not fact-checking Allen’s memoir, saying it was “wildly unprofessional in multiple obvious directions for Hachette to behave this way.”

Hachette has not commented publicly on whether the book was fact checked, though fact checking is not a standard practice in the publishing industry. That has become the subject of debate in the past year, due to a few high-profile incidents of inaccuracy in published books.

“It also shows a lack of ethics and compassion for victims of sexual abuse, regardless of any personal connection or breach of trust here,” Ronan Farrow said. “I’ve also told Hachette that a publisher that would conduct itself in this way is one I can’t work with in good conscience.”

Although Dylan Farrow first accused Allen of molesting her more than two decades ago, the Hollywood director has faced more scrutiny in recent years, in part due to the cultural reckoning caused by the #MeToo movement. Several celebrities, including actors Mira Sorvino and Rebecca Hall, have since said they regretted working with Allen and apologized to Dylan Farrow.

In an interview with the New York Times on Tuesday, Hachette CEO Michael Pietsch said the two books were published by different Hachette imprints, which aim not to interfere with one another’s publishing decisions. “Each book has its own mission,” he told the Times. “Our job as a publisher is to help the author achieve what they have set out to do in the creation of their book.”

In an email to Pietsch that was reported by the Times, Ronan Farrow criticized that defense.

“Your policy of editorial independence among your imprints does not relieve you of your moral and professional obligations as the publisher of Catch and Kill, and as the leader of a company being asked to assist in efforts by abusive men to whitewash their crimes,” he wrote.

“As you and I worked on Catch and Kill — a book in part about the damage Woody Allen did to my family — you were secretly planning to publish a book by the person who committed those acts of sexual abuse.”

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Three days after Grand Central Publishing announced that it would publish director Woody Allen's forthcoming memoir Apropos of Nothing, employees at the imprint and at Little, Brown, a sister imprint at Hachette Book Group, staged a walkout in protest of the acquisition. The walkouts, which have affected both the New York and Boston offices, have been joined by select HBG employees at other imprints as well, including Basic, Hachette Books, Forever, and Orbit. Allen has been accused by his adoptive daughter, Dylan Farrow, of molesting her in 1992, when she was seven years old.

'This afternoon, Grand Central Publishing employees are walking out of the Hachette New York office in protest of the publication of Woody Allen's memoir,' an email auto-reply from Grand Central employees' email addresses stated on Thursday afternoon. 'We stand in solidarity with Ronan Farrow, Dylan Farrow, and survivors of sexual assault.'

Little, Brown is the publisher of Ronan Farrow, the author of the bestselling Harvey Weinstein exposé Catch and Kill and Allen's estranged son, who has staunchly defended his sister and stood by her allegations in spite of Allen's consistent denials. In a post on Twitter on March 3, Farrow severed his ties with the publisher.

'I was disappointed to learn that Hachette, my publisher, acquired Woody Allen's memoir after other major publishers refused to do so and concealed the decision from me and its own employees while we were working on Catch and Kill—a book about how powerful men, including Woody Allen, avoid accountability for sexual abuse,' Farrow wrote in his March 3 post.

He continued: 'Hachette did not fact check the Woody Allen book. My sister Dylan has never been contacted to respond to any denial or mischaracterization of the abuse she suffered at the hands of Woody Allen—a credible allegation, maintained for almost three decades, backed up by contemporaneous accounts and evidence. It's wildly unprofessional in multiple obvious directions for Hachette to behave this way. But it also shows a lack of ethics and compassion for victims of sexual abuse, regardless of any personal connection or breach of trust here. I've encouraged Hachette, out of respect for its readers, authors, and reputation, to conduct a thorough fact check of Woody Allen's account, in particular any claim that implies my sister is not telling the truth. I've also told Hachette that a publisher that would conduct itself in this way is one I can't work with in good conscience.'

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Representatives of the walkout, who were gathered outside the Hachette offices in protest late Thursday afternoon, have yet to respond to requests for comment. One Hachette staffer, who requested anonymity, told PW that the protestors' demands included the cancellation of the book and apologies from both Hachette CEO Michael Pietsch and Grand Central senior v-p and publisher Ben Sevier, who acquired the manuscript. On Friday morning, another source, who also requested anonymity, said that a number of employees were working from home, although that source was not under the impression that they were on strike. The source added that, to their knowledge, the higher-ups at Hachette were meeting to discuss a solution, but had yet to announce any decision to staff.

'We respect and understand the perspective of our employees, who have decided to express their concern over the publication of this book,' Pietsch said in a statement about the walkout on Thursday. 'We will engage our staff in a fuller discussion about this at the earliest opportunity.'

In a conversation with the New York Times on Tuesday, Pietsch told the paper that HBG stands by Grand Central's decision. “We do not allow anyone’s publishing program to interfere with anyone else’s,” he said. “Grand Central publishing believes strongly that there’s a large audience that wants to hear the story of Woody Allen’s life as told by Woody Allen himself. That’s what they’ve chosen to publish.”

According to the New York Post, employees went to Hachette's human resources department to lodge formal complaints this afternoon around 3:00 p.m., at which point Pietsch attempted to call a town hall. “None of the senior leadership would stand with him and the staff walked out of the offices,” a source told the Post. “The staff felt so strongly about this and wanted to do this for Ronan, Dylan and all survivors of sexual assault.”

News of the acquisition comes ten months after the Times published a story detailing Allen's attempts to shop the memoir despite a lack of interest from publishers. While the agent John Burnham has long represented Allen for ICM Partners, Hachette declined to comment to PW on which agency, let alone agent, sold Sevier the manuscript.

This story has been updated with further information.