Oscars 2018: Casey Affleck Steps Down From Presenting This Year’s Best Actress Award

Casey Affleck will not be presenting the Best Actress award at the 90th Academy Awards, Deadline reports. Affleck has notified the Academy he will not be attending this year’s ceremony because he does not want his involvement in the telecast to distract from the performances of the five nominated actresses. The prospect of Affleck presenting the award was already causing controversy as the actor was previously accused of sexual misconduct on the set of “I’m Still Here.”

The Oscars have a tradition in which the Best Actor winner of the previous year presents the current year’s Best Actress prize. Affleck won the Oscar for starring in Kenneth Lonergan’s “Manchester by the Sea” last year. Shortly after the Harvey Weinstein allegations started breaking last October, a petition was created to have Affleck removed from the 90th Oscars given his own history of harassment allegations. The petition was signed by over 19,500 people.

Now that the Oscar nominations have been announced, many were wondering whether or not Affleck would be involved in a ceremony that is widely expected to reflect the #MeToo and Time’s Up anti-harassment movements. Affleck earned backlash when he won the Oscar last year given his history.

Deadline’s report claims that Affleck realized he was in a “no-win situation” and voluntarily stepped down from his expected role in the broadcast.