Woody Allen is again denying he molested adoptive daughter Dylan Farrow and is calling ex-partner Mia Farrow vindictive, spiteful and malevolent in an open-letter published online by The New York Times.
The 78-year-old filmmaker said Dylan’s open-letter published last week by The New York Times includes “creative flourishes that seem to have magically appeared during our 21-year estrangement”.
“Of course, I did not molest Dylan,” Allen wrote in the letter published on Friday (local time). “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.”
At the time of the breakup of their 12-year relationship more than two decades ago, Farrow accused Allen of molesting Dylan. Allen has consistently denied the abuse allegation. He again claimed in his open-letter that seven-year-old Dylan was coached by Farrow.
“Not that I doubt Dylan hasn’t come to believe she’s been molested, but if from the age of seven a vulnerable child is taught by a strong mother to hate her father because he is a monster who abused her, is it so inconceivable that after many years of this indoctrination the image of me Mia wanted to establish had taken root” said Allen.
Dylan claimed in her letter that in 1992 at the family’s Connecticut home, Allen led her to a “dim, closet-like attic” and “then he sexually assaulted me”. Farrow didn’t specify Allen’s actions, but described other abusive behaviour.
Allen said in his letter he believed Mia Farrow concocted those details, and they were inspired by the Dory Previn song With My Daddy in the Attic.
“Does the letter really benefit Dylan or does it simply advance her mother’s shabby agenda” said Allen. “That is to hurt me with a smear. There is even a lame attempt to do professional damage by trying to involve movie stars, which smells a lot more like Mia than Dylan.”
In his letter, Allen also addressed the claim by Mia Farrow that her ex-husband Frank Sinatra could be the father of son Ronan Farrow, not Allen.
“Even if he is not Frank’s, the possibility she raises that he could be, indicates she was secretly intimate with him during our years,” said Allen. “Not to mention all the money I paid for child support. Was I supporting Frank’s son Again, I want to call attention to the integrity and honesty of a person who conducts her life like that.
Allen said his open-letter “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”.
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He ended the letter by saying: “Enough people have been hurt.”
Messages left for Dylan, Mia and Ronan were not immediately returned.
– AP
