Casey Affleck Will Not Be Presenting at the Oscars for Obvious Reasons

It’s an Oscars tradition for the award for Best Actress to be presented by the previous year’s Best Actor recipient, and vice versa (the same goes for the supporting categories). But given that last year’s Best Actor Oscar went to Casey Affleck—a man with a long string of sexual harassment allegations against him—having him present at this year’s ceremony in light of #MeToo and Time’s Up would have been somewhere between awkward and total bullshit.

Well, bullet dodged, because Affleck has apparently withdrawn from presenting the award this year. As Mike Fleming Jr. at Deadline reports:

He has notified the Academy he will not be attending the event, sources said. I’ve heard that Affleck did not want to become a distraction from the focus that should be on the performances of the actresses in the category and that is why he made the proactive move. He was in a no-win situation, with all the attention surrounding the #metoo movement. The specter of Affleck presenting would have created controversy.

Seems like a very smart move on his part, though the fact that there was even a possibility that he could have returned and presented the top award for actresses at a time like this definitely sheds some light into how little it takes to enable men who abuse their power.