Babi Christina Engelhardt admits she brazenly approached the filmmaker first when she was 16 before they embarked on an eight-year affair.
- Dec 18, 2018
AceShowbiz - Woody Allen is facing new accusation of sexual misconduct with minor. Former teen model Babi Christina Engelhardt reveals in a new article published by The Hollywood Reporter that she began an eight-year relationship with the filmmaker when she was 16.
Engelhardt, who was an aspiring model at the time, says in October 1976 she gave her phone number to Allen when they met at a New York City restaurant. Soon, Allen called her and invited her to his Fifth Avenue penthouse.
Engelhardt says the director, who was 41 years old at the time, never asked her age, but she told him she was still in high school. Weeks later, their relationship turned intimate and they would engage in sexual activities for the next eight years at his place. She wouldn't turn 17, New York's legal age, until that December.
Over the course of their relationship, Engelhardt claims she and Allen met "on more than 100 subsequent occasions." She says that Allen later introduced her to "two other 'beautiful young ladies' for threesomes." While she had "experimented with bisexuality" prior to her relationship with Allen, she says with him it was "interesting-a '70s exploration."
Four years into their affair, Allen introduced Engelhardt to his then-girlfriend Mia Farrow. Engelhardt, who at the time thought she was his girlfriend, "felt sick." She recalls their meeting, "I didn't want to be there at all, and yet I couldn't find the courage to get up and leave. To leave would mean an end to all of this."
She eventually got over her "jealousy" and bonded with Farrow over a shared fondness for animals. She enjoyed their time together and found "[Farrow] was beautiful and sweet, he was charming and alluring, and I was sexy and becoming more and more sophisticated in this game."
It wasn't until their relationship was done that Engelhardt finally realized "how twisted it was when we were together ... and how I was little more than a plaything." She adds, "While we were together, the whole thing was a game that was being operated solely by Woody so we never quite knew where we stood."
Engelhardt, who saw Allen and Farrow's relationship "a form of mother-father," was later disappointed when she realized that Allen saw their relationship as "just a fling." She came to this conclusion after watching his 1979 film "Manhattan" about a young teen engaging in a sexual relationship with an older man.
"I cried through most of the movie, the dawning of realization slowly settling in as my greatest fears crept to the surface," she writes in her memoir manuscript. "How could he deconstruct my personality and our life together as if it were just some fictional creation for art house fatheads to pore over?"
Engelhardt, who speaks up about her relationship with Allen for the first time, says she has no intention to bring him down though the #MeToo movement has made her look back at their relationship with mixed emotions. "I'm not attacking Woody," she says. "This is not 'bring down this man.' I'm talking about my love story. This made me who I am. I have no regrets."
Allen has not commented on Engelhardt's story.
