Award-winning director Woody Allen has responded to allegations that he molested Dylan Farrow (the adopted daughter of Allen and Mia Farrow) when she was a child.
His lengthy written response, published by the New York Times on Friday night, was prompted by Farrow’s own open letter in the Times, which was published last weekend. In her letter, she alleged that Allen has molested her in a closet when she was seven years old, as well as performed other abusive acts during her childhood.
Allen’s response begins:
TWENTY-ONE years ago, when I first heard Mia Farrow had accused me of child molestation, I found the idea so ludicrous I didn’t give it a second thought.
He then asserts that Mia Farrow manipulated Dylan into telling doctors that Allen had abused her. He writes:
Mia insisted that I had abused Dylan and took her immediately to a doctor to be examined. Dylan told the doctor she had not been molested. Mia then took Dylan out for ice cream, and when she came back with her the child had changed her story. The police began their investigation.
This directly contradicts Dylan’s version of the story, in which she described being made to “recount [her] story over and over again, to doctor after doctor, pushed to see if [she’d] admit [she] was lying.”
Furthermore, Allen argues that the very nature of the alleged assault (in a small, attic-like closet) is impossible, because he suffers from claustrophobia. He goes so far as to say that the idea for what Allen asserts is a fabrication came from a Dory Previn song titled ‘With My Daddy in the Attic’, which was on the same record as a song Previn wrote about Mia engaging in an affair with her husband.
Throughout the piece, Allen makes reference to Moses Farrow, the son from his relationship with Mia that he is still in regular contact with.
Moses, and Allen’s current wife/Mia’s adoptive daughter, Soon-Yi, support Allen’s version of events. Moses believes that Mia manipulated Dylan and his youngest brother Ronan (who was four at the time of the alleged assault) into hating their father.
Allen concludes his response with a plea for Dylan to eventually reconnect with her family, as well as a firm statement that this will be his final comment on the matter:
Of course, I did not molest Dylan. I loved her and hope one day she will grasp how she has been cheated out of having a loving father and exploited by a mother more interested in her own festering anger than her daughter’s well-being. Being taught to hate your father and made to believe he molested you has already taken a psychological toll on this lovely young woman, and Soon-Yi and I are both hoping that one day she will understand who has really made her a victim and reconnect with us, as Moses has, in a loving, productive way. No one wants to discourage abuse victims from speaking out, but one must bear in mind that sometimes there are people who are falsely accused and that is also a terribly destructive thing. (This piece will be my final word on this entire matter and no one will be responding on my behalf to any further comments on it by any party. Enough people have been hurt.)
Interestingly, Allen made no attempt to defend the individual celebrities he had worked with (such as Australian actress Cate Blanchett) whom Dylan called on to boycott his productions.
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UPDATE: Dylan Farrow has responded to Woody Allen’s op-ed. She told The Hollywood Reporter that his piece was “the latest rehash of the same legalese, distortions, and outright lies he has levelled at [her] for the past 20 years.”
She added: “I have never wavered in describing what he did to me. I will carry the memories of surviving these experiences for the rest of my life.”
Top Comments
I don't know if he is innocent or guilty but I think when people say child molesters usually have more than one victim, well if he is guilty we don't know if he does have more than one victim, look at that disgusting guy in Britain (forgotten his names - Jimmy Saville?) nothing came out about him till after he died yet it turns out he was a prolific abuser.
Also we already know that Woody has had a relationship with a woman who by society's standard (regardless of what the legality is) was considered his daughter. She was also very young when this happened. So we know he is capable of going after a very young woman who sees him as a father, this is a fact, so that indicates that there is a good chance that he has done this with another "daughter".
And for those who say that Dylan is his only victim, it seems to me that considering the questionable ethics of his relationship with Soon-Yi that perhaps Soon-Yi is also one of his victims, which would mean that he has at least 2 that we know of.
As for Mia, she may be barking mad as some people seem to think (I know little about her so I can't comment on her sanity) and if that's the case she might be lying, but then again maybe she has become unhinged because she has found out that the man she loved has abused her children.
There is another thing too Mia herself always had a very girlish look, flat chested innocent looking etc, so it would appear to me from that relationship that he may well be attracted to girlish looking women.
Now if you take all of this information together whilst we can't say for certain that he is guilty there certainly is quite a bit of evidence against him.
"Mia Farrow had accused me of child molestation, I found the idea so ludicrous I didn’t give it a second thought." Didn't give an accusation that you molested your own adopted daughter a second thought? How chillingly telling. These are the words of a master gaslighter surely.
Absolutely! Within the fist paragraphs it becomes glaringly obvious. This is not a normal response of an innocent man being accused of sexual assualt.