Megalopolis crew member says Francis Ford Coppola kissed 13-year-old girl on the cheek

A new eyewitness has come forward to accuse director Francis Ford Coppola of inappropriate behavior while filming Megalopolis. In a Daily Beast report, Benjamin Cawood, the film’s child labor coordinator, claims he saw the director kiss a 13-year-old girl on the cheek after he “seemed to be leering” at her. The alleged kiss occurred during the same New Year’s Eve scene that multiple other extras claimed Coppola kissed them while filming earlier this summer.  

Cawood says that he watched Coppola compliment the girl on her costume “then asked how old she was—but it was just kind of weird that he took interest in her [since] she was literally the only person he sort of singled out.” The director then proceeded to film the scene where, as others have also claimed, he said New Year’s is “literally the one of those moments where you can just kiss somebody” and began to do just that. Cawood claims that he watched Coppola kiss an adult woman (from his angle he couldn’t tell whether it was on the cheek or the mouth) before kissing the 13-year-old and then a man on the cheek in succession. The minor seemed “shocked” in the moment, he said. 

Cawood claims that he proceeded to inform the girl’s mother (who didn’t seem too bothered at the time) and report the incident to his employer, an “educational consulting service” for productions. Coppola “definitely knew the girl is a minor, because only moments before this happened he had asked her her age and made some comment about her costume,” he wrote in his email; the service replied saying they would speak to HR. 

Months later, however, Cawood read executive co-producer Darren Demetre’s comment that he “was never aware of any complaints of harassment or ill behaviour during the course of the project” in The Guardian. “I was like bulls–t [sic],” Cawood said. Either his employer didn’t actually contact production or Demetre was mistaken. “I know I tried to do what I needed to do,” he said.

In a statement to The Daily Beast, a representative for Coppola said, “Contrary to the prior false media reports, on the Megalopolis production there were multiple levels of guidelines and reporting channels concerning any claimed harassment, sexual or otherwise. There were no such claims reported at any time during the production.” (Coppola’s representatives did not immediately respond to The A.V. Club‘s request for comment on this story.)