Woody Allen: Sex abuse accusations are stupidity
Woody Allen has dismissed child sex abuse allegations made against him as "stupidity".
The legendary 80-year-old director has for years had to face accusations he molested Dylan – Mia Farrow’s adopted daughter who he co-adopted in 1991 – since his acrimonious break-up from Mia in 1992.
Dylan, 31, accused Woody of sexually assaulted her when she was just seven years old and as recently as 2014 she wrote in an open letter that he abused her in a "dim, closet-like attic" at their family home.
Woody was investigated over the abuse allegations at the time of the incident, but was not charged after a panel of psychologists, appointed by US prosecutors and the police, concluded that Dylan had not been molested.
The ‘Cafe Society’ filmmaker has always maintained his innocence and accused Mia of fabricating the claims and forcing her daughter to go along with them due to her bitterness over their split and his subsequent marriage to Soon-Yi Previn – the daughter Mia adopted with her ex-husband Andre Previn – in 1997.
The allegations came to the forefront again in May when his estranged biological son Ronan Farrow wrote a scathing piece in The Hollywood Reporter stating he believed his sister Dylan and lambasted the media for supporting his father.
Woody has now come out on the attack about Ronan’s piece, insisting he has already been cleared of any wrongdoing.
In an interview with The Guardian newspaper, he said: "I have no interest in all of that. I find that all stupidity. That situation has been thoroughly, thoroughly investigated up and down the line by New York social services in a 14-month investigation." The ‘Blue Jasmine’ director went on to claim that he has been harassed over the matter, but insists it has no effect on him any more.
He continued: "It has been investigated by Yale and conclusions were clear and I have no interest in that whole situation.
"I get harassed all the time on it. But it doesn’t affect me and I just have no interest in it … It (has) confirmed all my misanthropic feelings."
In his essay, titled ‘My Father, Woody Allen and the Danger of Questions Unasked’, Ronan, 28, stated he witnessed "inappropriate" behavior from his father, writing: "I believe my sister. This was always true as a brother who trusted her, and – even at five years old – was troubled by our father’s strange behavior around her: climbing into her bed in the middle of the night, forcing her to suck his thumb – behavior that had prompted him to enter into therapy focused on his inappropriate conduct with children prior to the allegations."
Back in 2014, when Dylan released her open letter, Woody strenuously denied he abused his daughter, insisting: "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."
However, Dylan responded angrily to Woody’s Golden Globe Lifetime Achievement Award in the same year and took aim at her father, saying: "Woody Allen is a living testament to the way our society fails the survivors of sexual assault and abuse."
