Woody Allen calls Dylan Farrow's sexual abuse allegations 'preposterous' in a rare interview

In his first in-depth TV interview in almost three decades, Woody Allen responded to resurfaced allegations that he molested his daughter Dylan Farrow, claims he has repeatedly denied.

FP Staff March 29, 2021 11:54:42 IST
Woody Allen calls Dylan Farrow's sexual abuse allegations 'preposterous' in a rare interview

Director Woody Allen poses during a photo call for Midnight in Paris, at the 64th international film festival, in Cannes, southern France, Wednesday, May 11, 2011. (AP Photo/Joel Ryan)

Woody Allen, in a never-seen-before interview on CBS Sunday Morning, has addressed allegations of sexual abuse dating back years ago by his daughter, Dylan Farrow. The director has proclaimed his innocence while noting he believes Farrow "believes" she's telling the truth.

“I believe she thinks it,” Allen, 85, said, referring to his daughter’s abuse claims. “She was a good kid. I do not believe that she’s making it up. I don’t believe she’s lying. I believe she believes that.”

CBS says the talk was Allen’s first in-depth, on-camera American interview in nearly 30 years. He was interviewed in July 2020, finally airing today on the Paramount+ streaming service, reports Deadline.

The interview comes at the heels of Allen v Farrow, new four-part HBO documentary series from investigative filmmakers Kirby Dick & Amy Ziering and Amy Herdy, which centred around the molestation allegations and the custody battle that followed.

The Oscar-winning film director has never been charged with any crimes and has always denied the accusations. He and his wife, Soon-Yi Previn, whom his ex-girlfriend Mia Farrow adopted with her ex-husband, composer André Previn, have written off Allen v. Farrow as fiction, slamming it as "a hatchet job riddled with falsehoods."

"It's so preposterous and yet the smear has remained," Woody told CBS Sunday Morning. "And they still prefer to cling to, if not the notion that I molested Dylan, the possibility that I molested her. Nothing that I ever did with Dylan in my life could be misconstrued as that."

He added that there was 'no logic' to the allegations. "Why would a guy who's 57-years-old and never accused of anything in my life, I'm suddenly going to drive up in the middle of a contentious custody fight at Mia's country home (with) a 7-year-old girl. It just – on the surface, I didn't think it required an investigation, even," he said.

Allen told CBS he would like to reach out to Dylan but has not spoken to her since the allegations surfaced.

Allen and Previn, now 50, have been married for 23 years and have raised two adopted daughters now in college.

(Also read on Firstpost - What do we do with Woody Allen’s films? Beyond platitudes of separating art from artist, a fresh reckoning is in order)

 

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