The 'Blue Jasmine' director writes his side of story and slams his ex-girlfriend Mia for allegedly using their daughter Dylan Farrow as 'a pawn for revenge.'
- Feb 8, 2014
AceShowbiz - Woody Allen spoke out. The actor/director broke his silence for the first time since the two-decade-old allegation that he sexually abused his adopted daughter Dylan re-emerged after his ex Mia Farrow and son Ronan Farrow brought it up on Twitter during Golden Globes where he was feted with lifetime achievement award.
"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 wrote in a piece on New York Times. "We were involved in a terribly acrimonious breakup, with great enmity between us and a custody battle slowly gathering energy."
"The self-serving transparency of her malevolence seemed so obvious I didn't even hire a lawyer to defend myself," he went on. "It was my show business attorney who told me she was bringing the accusation to the police and I would need a criminal lawyer."
"I naively thought the accusation would be dismissed out of hand because of course, I hadn't molested Dylan and any rational person would see the ploy for what it was. Common sense would prevail. After all, I was a 56-year-old man who had never before (or after) been accused of child molestation."
Woody continued, "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."
"Last week a woman named Stacey Nelkin, whom I had dated many years ago, came forward to the press to tell them that when Mia and I first had our custody battle 21 years ago, Mia had wanted her to testify that she had been underage when I was dating her, despite the fact this was untrue. Stacey refused. I include this anecdote so we all know what kind of character we are dealing with here."
Mia got the custody of their children after she broke up with Woody following his affair with her adopted daughter Soon-Yi. "I still loved her deeply," he said of Dylan whom he never met after the messy split, "and felt guilty that by falling in love with Soon-Yi I had put her in the position of being used as a pawn for revenge."
Out of the three children, only Moses has reconnected with their father. 14-year-old Moses once said, "My mother drummed it into me to hate my father for tearing apart the family and sexually molesting my sister." Now 36 years old, he fired back at their mother Mia in a new interview, saying that the bully was her, not their father Woody.
"No one wants to discourage abuse victims from speaking out," Woody said, "but one must bear in mind that sometimes there are people who are falsely accused and that is also a terribly destructive thing." He concluded, "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."
