,
‘s adopted daughter, has given a
detailed account of the 1992 alleged sexual abuse by the director.
Farrow made the child molestation allegations in a first person
account published in
Woody Allen declined to
comment to the Times. The letter was published Saturday on the
Times web site as part of Nicholas D. Kristof’s blog. Kristof has
also written
an
op-ed column about the allegations
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, noting
that Allen recently received a lifetime achievement award at the
Jan. 13 Golden Globes. Allen’s screenplay for “Blue Jasmine” is one
of the five original screenplays nominated for a Writers Guild
Award and an Oscar this year. The WGA Awards are being held
Saturday evening with simultaneoous ceremonies in Los Angeles and
New York. Allen, who has been nominated 21 times for a WGA Award
and won five, rarely attends awards events. Diane Keaton received
the Golden Globes award on his behalf on Jan. 13. When the charges
first arose in 1992, Allen was accused of touching the
then-7-year-old inappropriately. Allen responded by asserting that
the his ex-wife Mia Farrow had made the allegations out of anger
over his affair with her adopted daughter Soon-Yi Farrow Previn.
Prosecutors decided not to pursue charges. Mia Farrow was
awarded custody of the couple’s three children in 1993 by a judge
who denied Allen visitation rights with Dylan Farrow. Allen has
never been convicted of child abuse. Dylan Farrow, who is now 28,
said that the assault took place in the attic of her home. “He told
me to lay on my stomach and play with my brother’s electric train
set,” she said. “Then he sexually assaulted me. He talked to me
while he did it, whispering that I was a good girl, that this was
our secret, promising that we’d go to Paris and I’d be a star in
his movies.” Farrow also claims in her open letter that she was
profoundly impacted by the alleged assault. “That he got away with
what he did to me haunted me as I grew up,” she said in the letter.
“I was terrified of being touched by men. I developed an eating
disorder. I began cutting myself.” “That torment was made worse by
Hollywood,” Farrow said. “All but a precious few (my heroes) turned
a blind eye. Most found it easier to accept the ambiguity, to say,
‘who can say what happened,’ to pretend that nothing was wrong.
Actors praised him at awards shows. Networks put him on TV. Critics
put him in magazines. Each time I saw my abuser’s face – on a
poster, on a T-shirt, on television – I could only hide my panic
until I found a place to be alone and fall apart.” Kristof noted in
his op-ed that Allen’s defenders correctly note that he denies the
allegations, has never been convicted and should be presumed
innocent. “People weighed in on all sides, but one person who
hasn’t been heard out is Dylan Farrow, 28, the writer and artist
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whom Allen was accused of molesting,” he said. “Dylan, Allen’s
adopted daughter who is now married and living in Florida under a
different name, tells me that she has been traumatized for more
than two decades by what took place; last year, she was belatedly
diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. She says that when
she heard of the Golden Globe award being given to Allen she curled
up in a ball on her bed, crying hysterically.” Kristof questioned
the wisdom of giving Allen a lifetime achievement award. “Look,
none of us can be certain what happened,” he said. “The standard to
send someone to prison is guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, but
shouldn’t the standard to honor someone be that they are
unimpeachably, well, honorable? Yet the Golden Globes sided
with Allen, in effect accusing Dylan either of lying or of not
mattering. That’s the message that celebrities in film, music and
sports too often send to abuse victims.”
2014 Variety Media, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media; Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC