Mia Farrow Vs. Woody Allen: Director Responds To Sex Abuse Charges With NY Times Op-Ed
The ongoing battle between Mia Farrow and her daughter on one side, and her former romantic partner Woody Allen on the other, took a new turn Friday afternoon when the acclaimed director of this year’s Oscar-nominated film Blue Jasmine penned a 1,750-word essay defending himself that was published on the New York Times web site.
The piece is set to appear in the Sunday, February 9, print edition of The New York Times.
In the piece, Woody Allen blames the recent revival of the two-decade-old sex abuse charges by Dylan Farrow, the former couple’s adoptive daughter, squarely on Mia Farrow herself, saying that she coached her daughter in 1992 and may even be the true author of an open letter written by Dylan Farrow restating the sex abuse charges.
Dylan Farrow published that open letter last Saturday, February 1, also in The New York Times. The letter detailed her allegations of sexual abuse against her adoptive father, charges she earlier revived in an October 2013 Vanity Fair interview.
In Friday’s essay, the 78-year-old Woody Allen charges that Mia Farrow, now 68, was enraged that he had embarked on romantic — and sexual — relationship with Soon-Yi Previn, who was another adopted daughter of Mia Farrow from a prior relationship with musician Andre Previn. Soon-Yi Previn was 20 at the time.
The relationship, Woody Allen writes, “outraged Mia as improper despite the fact she had dated a much older Frank Sinatra when she was 19.”
Sinatra and Mia Farrow married in 1966 when she was 21 and the legendary crooner was 50. Woody Allen married Soon-Yi Previn in 1997 when he was 62 and she was 27.
Interviewed by Vanity Fair in 2013, Mia Farrow claimed that her sole biological child with Woody Allen, son Ronan Farrow, could “possibly” be the son of Sinatra, not Allen.
If true, that would mean that the child was conceived in early 1987, long before the troubles in the Mia Farrow and Woody Allen relationship surfaced, and when Sinatra would have been 71 and Farrow 42. Sinatra and Mia Farrow divorced in 1968.
In his essay, Woody Allen says that Mia Farrow in 1992 phoned his sister, “in a rage” and pledged, “He took my daughter, now I’ll take his.”
He also asserts that Dylan Farrow’s recent restatement of the sexual abuse charges include, “a few little added creative flourishes that seem to have magically appeared during our 21-year estrangement.”
Woody Allen, in fact, speculates that Mia Farrow may be the true author of last Saturday’s Dylan Farrow letter.
In that letter, Dylan Farrow challenges several actors who have appeared in Woody Allen films to disavow the director. In his Friday essay, Woody Allen terms this, “a lame attempt to do professional damage by trying to involve movie stars, which smells a lot more like Mia than Dylan.”
“Of course, I did not molest Dylan,” Woody Allen wrote. “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.”
On Monday, Mia Farrow warned that in the wake of her daughter’s revived allegations, “a lot of ugliness is going to be aimed at me. But this is not about me, it’s about her truth.”
