French actress Emmanuelle Seigner has rejected an invitation to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, in a column in which she condemned the "hypocrisy" of a group that expelled her husband Roman Polanski two months ago.
Seigner is one of 928 artists and executives which the Academy, best known for giving the Oscars movie awards, last month invited to become members.
The Academy expelled Oscar-winning Polanski in May for violating a conduct code it had adopted following hundreds of accusations of sexual harassment or assault in the entertainment industry.
"How can I ignore the fact that a few weeks ago the Academy expelled my husband, Roman Polanski, in an attempt to appease the zeitgeist - the very same Academy which in 2002 awarded him an Oscar for The Pianist! A curious case of amnesia!" Seigner said in the column published in France's Le Journal du Dimanche.
"The Academy probably thinks I am enough of a spineless, social climbing actress that I would forget that I have been married for the past 29 years to one of the world's greatest directors," she said, denouncing what she called "insufferable hypocrisy".
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READ NOWPolanski, 84, who won the best director Oscar in 2003 for The Pianist, had in 1977 admitted to having unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl in Los Angeles.
Polanski and television star Bill Cosby, who had been members since 1969 and 1996 respectively, were the first known members expelled for violating the Academy's new code of conduct.