It’s been 25 years since Dylan Farrow’s accusation that her father, Woody Allen, molested her while he was her director. The movements Time’s Up and #MeToo have stoked the fires of controversy once more.
In 1993, during an ugly custody battle between Allen and Mia Farrow, Dylan’s adoptive parents, the allegation first surfaced. Allen, 82, released a statement saying he “never molested my daughter – as all investigations concluded a quarter of a century ago” on Thursday, the same day that Dylan, 32, spoke out publicly on television for the first time. Many actors who have worked with Allen have distanced themselves from the director in recent weeks.
Take a look below to see how Dylan and Allen got to this point in their relationship.
Mia Farrow Makes The First Claims
As part of their contentious 1993 custody battle, Mia Farrow testified against Allen, saying he was obsessed with Dylan. According to her, Dylan confided in her in 1992 that Allen had “acted inappropriately toward Dylan” by touching her in a sexual manner. As Farrow testified in court, Allen “was constantly wrapping himself around her, constantly hovering over her.”
Allen denied the claim outright at the time, and he has maintained ever since that Mia fabricated the story and coached Dylan to tell it in order to gain custody of their three children, Moses, who was 14 at the time, Dylan, who was 7, and Ronan,
who was 5 at the time. In 1992, after Allen’s affair with Farrow’s adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn, then around 20 years old, became public knowledge, tensions between Allen and Mia erupted. Since their wedding, Allen and Previn have shared more than two decades of marriage.
The Investigation
Connecticut prosecutors opened a criminal investigation of the direct result of Dylan’s accusation against her father being made public.
State attorney Frank S. Maco made the controversial decision to drop the case against Allen, despite having found “probable cause” to prosecute, in 1993, citing Dylan’s “fragility” as the reason.
Maco told PEOPLE in 2013 that Dylan had been “traumatized to the extent that I did not have a confident witness to testify in any court setting, whether that is a closed courtroom or an open courtroom,” following Dylan’s revelations to Vanity Fair about the alleged molestation.
However, Justice Elliott Wilk, who presided over the custody trial, expressed skepticism about the validity of the Yale-New Haven Hospital’s testimony. As a result of Allen’s “grossly inappropriate” behavior toward Dylan, he was denied custody of the children.
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Dylan Speaks Out
Dylan told PEOPLE in 2014 that she had to muster every ounce of strength she possessed to write the emotional open letter she had sent to the New York Times outlining her molestation claim. Shortly before Allen won the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the Golden Globes, the letter was published.
“It took all of my strength and all of my emotional fortitude to do what I did this week in the hope that it would put the truth out there,” Dylan said. That is the only weapon I have. No limos, no publicists, no fancy Manhattan apartments, no money. The truth is all I have to offer, and that’s what I always share.
Ultimately, Dylan decided to tell her story in her own words, but it was a difficult decision. She elaborated on her Vanity Fair allegations in her letter, writing, “For as long as I could remember, my father had been doing things to me that I didn’t like.”
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Allen Says Dylan Was ‘Exploited’
Allen published a letter in the New York Times in response, vehemently denying the allegation.
Obviously, I did not molest Dylan. He wrote, “I loved her, and I hope that someday she will understand how she was deprived of a caring father and used by a mother who cared more about her own resentment than her daughter’s happiness.” Soon-Yi and I are both hoping that this lovely young woman will one day understand
who has really made her a victim and reconnect with us, as Moses has, in a loving, productive way. “Being taught to hate your father and made to believe he molested you has already taken a psychological toll on her. No one wants to silence those who have suffered abuse, but it’s important to remember that false accusations can have devastating effects as well.
FAQs – People Also Ask
Why is Woody Allen so controversial?
Dylan Farrow, then seven years old and adopted by Mia Farrow, accused him of sexually assaulting her in their Bridgewater, Connecticut, home in 1992, making him a controversial figure. (1) According to court documents, in 1987 and 1988, Farrow began to worry about Allen’s actions in the presence of Dylan.
What did Woody Allen do to Dylan Farrow?
American actor and director Woody Allen was accused of sexually molesting his adoptive daughter Dylan Farrow, then seven years old, in the home of her adoptive mother, actress Mia Farrow, in Bridgewater, Connecticut, in August 1992. All the while, Allen has denied the claim.
Why was Woody Allen in therapy with a psychologist?
Allen had been seeing a child psychologist for treatment of his alleged inappropriate behavior toward Dylan before the abuse allegation was reported to authorities or made public. Mia Farrow had made it clear to her babysitters that Allen was not to be given unsupervised time with Dylan. 3.
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