We’re going to make an effort to not editorialize very much on this continuing Woody Allen/Mia Farrow/Dylan Farrow story. You can read Dylan’s New York Times op-ed open letter here – it was published on Saturday, and many people believed her story. While Woody Allen’s camp – his media and legal team – seemed content to merely issue the occasional statement when Mia and Ronan Farrow were tweeting and discussing the situation to Vanity Fair, now Woody’s camp is on the offensive. Woody’s team has already made some statements, and this morning, Woody’s lawyer appeared live on the Today show to respond to the Farrow family:
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Woody’s lawyer Elkan Abramowitz says, in part:
“His reaction is one of overwhelming sadness because of what has happened to Dylan. She was a pawn in a huge fight between him and Mia Farrow years ago, and the idea that she was molested was implanted in her by her mother. That memory is never going to go away. So the fact that she says this now, that it happened 20 years ago, is totally understandable.”
“In my view, she’s not lying. I think she truly believes this happened. That’s what the vice of this is. When you implant a story in a fragile 7-year-old’s mind, it stays there forever. It never goes away.”
The lawyer also disregards the custody case – which was found in Mia’s favor – as “wrong” and when asked whether Woody has any desire to sue Mia Farrow, Dylan or anyone else reporting on this, Abramowitz says: “Woody Allen is not interested in suing anybody for defamation. He was determined not to have molested his daughter 20 years ago. The case is over. There is no case. The fact that it is being brought up now is suspect. The timing is suspect.” Team Woody is putting this all on Mia Farrow too, basically saying that Mia is holding a huge grudge.
Team Woody also has an ally in Barbara Walters (which the Today video mentions). Walters defended Woody in broad strokes yesterday on The View – you can read some coverage here, plus the video.
Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.
Puke.
Indeed.
My heart goes out to Dylan.
“He was determined not to have molested his daughter 20 years ago.” False. They simply were not able to charge him because the case would have rested on the testimony of the seven year old and they were not going to subject her to more of the circus, cross-examination, and stress. He WAS determined, at the very least, to have been extremely inappropriate with her, given his forced need for therapy about her and being stripped of custody and any visitation rights with her.
Right, and what people sometimes intentionally don’t mention, is that Allen was in therapy for Dylan (after Mia, close friends and relatives had witnessed his intense obsession and doting, including inappropriate behavior) long before Mia even found out about Soon Yi!!
The Allen apologists, like leaving the order out because the Soon Yi relationship as catalyst gives Allen cover. When the timeline is muddied, it makes it easier to believe Mia is capable of making it all up about Dylan after she flew into a rage after finding out about Soon Yi. Not true.
And you know this how? Because Mia Farrow told somebody it was so. Allen WAS exonerated by a whole team of independent and highly regarded psychologists from Yale-New Haven who had done a six month long investigation. Furthermore, they and at least two of her nannies all made sworn statements suggesting that Mia Farrow was at the heart of a highly manipulative campaign to “brainwash” 7-year-old Dylan to make the allegations. The virtual lynch mob around her is really awful. As the attorney for Allen said again this morning, Dylan IS a victim, but of her adoptive mother’s abuse, not Woody Allen’s.
This is utter bull. Please get your facts straight. The allegations made by Mia Farrow (accompanied with a questionably edited video) were DISMISSED by the proper investigating authorities based on the high probability that Dylan had been “coached by her mother.” Get it? He was never even charged because the allegations did not hold water. FACT.
Well, I guess 30 years from now, when Woody Allen is dead, his two adopted daughters with Soon Yi ( Bechet and Manzie) might come forward.
If they publically state that he never laid a hand on them, it will cast doubt on Dylan Farrow’s story.
If they publically state he had sex with them, it will reinforce Dylan Farrow’s story.
Personally, I believe Dylan Farrow. Seeing that Woody had the inappropriate relationship with 16 year old Soon Yi gives credence to the idea that Woody likes young. ( but 16 year old girls and 7 year old girls are two slightly different sides of the same inappropriate coin)
Time will tell.
But I do feel badly for Soon Yi, Bechet and Manzie. Dylan had her mother intercede and put a stop to things, and her mother had the resources to separate completely from Allen.
Soon Yi and her daughters have absolutely no where to go and no one to fall back on. They are trapped.
Soon-Yi was thought to be 21 (they weren’t sure of her exact age at adoption) and was a sophomore in college at the time she and Woody Allen became involved. So, she wasn’t 16.
Uh, brooklyn? You know Woody Allen to be ‘innocent’ exactly HOW?? Why do I feel like you’re part of the problem and possibly part of Woody’s PR team, who are fully representated on this site.
Yeah, nobody can ‘know’ what happened except for Woody, Dylan and the witnesses who saw him slinking out of the attic. I ‘know’ all I need to know about Dylan. I recognize another victim when I read her words, and what could she possibly have to gain in all this? Victims spend most of their lifetimes trying NOT to talk or think about their abuse. Trust me. If you believe in Woody’s innocence so much, then feel free to have him babysit your underage daughters if you have any. No? Thought not.
I’m sorry and this is a horrible thing to say but Woody Allen looks like a paedophile.
Yeah, you’re right. It is. Too bad you didn’t put up your photo so we could accuse you of horrible acts on the basis of your facial features.
If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck…
Hey, if you’re so confident in Allen’s guilt, why not present a different viewpoint, one that might actually shed some light on what Mia Farrow’s true intentions may be. Whatever “side” you’re on, you owe it to yourself to get the facts straight:
Most likely generating publicity for herself and her son Ronan (she as a saintly celebrity humanitarian, he as a new media figure and possible future politician with a saintly humanitarian for a mother–which would be perfect actually):
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/03/woody-allen-dylan-farrow-abuse-allegations
Related: her clear hypocrisy–Why would she agree to allow the Globes to use her image in the Allen tribute montage and then turn around and tweet her 20 years old dirty laundry at the expense of her daughter? *cough* attention?
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/01/27/the-woody-allen-allegations-not-so-fast.html
As a vindictive, jilted lover with a past filled with all kinds of deplorable personal behavior:
http://www.cracked.com/funny-1262-mia-farrow/
I honestly hope you’re not trying to cite cracked which is largely a parody and comedy Site as a way to back up any viewpoint
I just read the Daily Beast article linked from The Wrap. The information in that article is the most convincing I’ve read as to why Woody did not abuse Dylan. I believe Dylan has been a pawn in Mia’s on-going hatred of Woody. If doctors declared there was no abuse when the allegations were first raised, doesn’t that put and end to the entire story?
You know that article was written by one of Woody Allen’s best friends, right? And doctors did not say there was no abuse, they declared it inconclusive. I’m assuming you understand that sexual abuse doesn’t only mean penetration.
Re: “Mia’s on-going hatred of Woody”, it sounds like some people think her hatred for Woody is unreasonable… He ran off with her daughter who he was having an extremely inappropriate secret relationship with!!! I believe he molested Dylan. She has PTSD, you don’t get PTSD from “implanted memories”.
You get PTSD from post-traumatic stress. Don’t you think being put in the middle of a vicious, highly inappropriate set of accusations and being pressured and manipulated relentlessly would perhaps count as a stressful event for a little kid? Being told something happened over and over again until you believe it. And if you don’t, you’ll be persona non grata with the central figure in your life? Also, who says she has PTSD. She and her mom do.
He just comes off looking worse & worse.
Just found this link on the Eyes for Lies website suggestion page. I know she would rather critique new or more recent events, but I hope she would make an exception for this one. Woody Allen’s interview is interesting. Note his nervous cough during the uncomfortable questions. However, his responses seem rather genuine I suppose. But I don’t know what to think. An expert’s opinion like Eyes for Lies would be great in this case.
I do personally question his moral compass after having an affair with his wife’s daughter/his step daughter :
1) for having an affair
2) for picking his step daughter
3) taking inappropriate photos of her at a young age
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/02/02/watch-woody-allen-address-the-dylan-farrow-child-abuse-allegations-on-60-minutes.html
http://eyesforlies.uservoice.com/forums/14727-topic-suggestions
The persons thoughts I want to hear the most about are Soon-Yis.
Does she never doubt him no matter what is thrown at him? Can she completely cast off a sister and ignore her pleas and pain? Does she worry about her daughters?
Seriously, I want to know what she thinks.
Well, who knows what’s true, but the VF article states Soon-Yi was diagnosed with emotional & intellectual disabilities, probably as a result of her earlier neglect in her native country. She supposedly developed a romantic “crush” on Woody as a pre-teen and started to rebel against Mia at that point. I think she’s been groomed & brainwashed by Woody for decades.
Well, she has a degree from Columbia University and has seemed perfectly lucid and able-minded in the Woody Allen documentaries I’ve seen. So this is just one more indefensible charge in the swift boating of Woody Allen.
Female sex abuse victims DO NOT make it up, especially not 20 plus years later!!!!!! You cannot Brainwash someone into thinking they were sexually or physically abused.
You can, however, try and brainwash the victim into thinking it didn’t happen, which I believe to be the case here. I know this for a fact because I am a survivour of physical and sexual abuse ad a VERY young child. It’s been ALMOST 30 years now and I’m still not over it.
The use of the word “implanted” makes me squirm.
That was such a fad. In the 80’s everything was Satanic rituals and cults, in the 90’s it was implanted memories. I have a hard time trusting the notion of implanted memories because it was the go-to trendy explanation for everything in the 90’s.
Thank you! I questioned this very thing yesterday in another post.
Yes. It’s widely considered bunk now.
@Algernon, thanks for clearing that up for me! Still feel unclean though. . .
I have 2 kids and i feel strongly that any molestation that strikes a 7 yr old will be life-alteringly memorable. My children were mature and self-aware at 7, Dylan knows what happened to her, and it is sick and sad for anyone to doubt her.
I have been disgusted with Allen since his affair with Soon-Yi. He has a predilection for child-like women, its a theme prevalent in his films (margot hemingway, juliette lewis to name a few) i bet he only started casting mature women in his films because he became too old to be cast as the lead paramour, even he is clever enough to know the tolerance of his audience. However, his few published pictures of him with his adopted daughters have been loaded, to say the least. I fear for their safety and physical and mental well being.
Sadly it may be posthumously that we learn the whole truth and the extent of his victims. Too late for confrontation and closure.
And people wonder why some children and adults still keep their molestation a secret. It is the most horrible thing in the world, not to be believed or to have it trivialized.
+1. The victim gets torn apart, scrutinized, and discredited while the abuser tries to come across as an innocent victim. Sickening.
You two said exactly what I came here to say.
How heartbreaking for Dylan to hear him attack her state of mind and diminish her suffering. How awful for millions of people to idolize the person who traumatized her.
I hope she finds some peace in speaking out
Exactly.
An ex of mine was raped by her father from age 7 until she left for college. It wasn’t a secret by the time she was 14: Army chaplains were told, military doctors, child psychologists, her mother. Yet SHE was the one who was blamed and was Dxed with a personality disorder and made to go to behaviorally therapy. Her father was a highly-decorated officer.
We ultimately broke up after several years because she was so damaged by this, although we remain great friends. I saw her pain and struggles for so many years — I actually still do — so yes, this is personal to me.
She has broken off all communication with her family. She sent me an email a couple days ago saying how this was triggering her, but she also said she wonders what she would be like now if she had had a mother who believed her and not an outside “authority.”
^ This!
Exactly! The championed excuse that it hasn’t been to court or he wasn’t charged and convicted so therefore it’s not true is beyond ridiculous. When every other news report is on a miscarriage of justice somewhere, how can people truly believe that the only indicator of truth is a guilty verdict and a harsh sentence? For those that say women lie all the time about being sexually assaulted so she must be lying too, I always ask this: how many women/girls that you know have been assaulted, raped, harassed, grabbed, groped, etc? How many successful court cases have you been to for these women? Pretty sure it’s not even close.
Actually, the legal system is the only fair way to determine someone’s innocence or guilt. What everyone is doing is jumping on accusations and vilifying someone for something he was accused of, not convicted of. In fact, no charges were laid! If someone accused YOU of, let’s say, murder and you were innocent but all signs pointed to guilty, wouldn’t you want to at least be given a fair trial instead of swift judgment and punishment?
While obviously the legal system is necessary, I wouldn’t really use “fair” to readily describe it. There are so many factors taken into consideration regardless of the verdict but that doesn’t make them true. In this man’s case, lots of evidence was found for abuse and inappropriate behaviour. I believe it was a Harvard report that said he didn’t do anything and the kid was forced to lie but they refused to testify in the case and I don’t think Dylan and family were interviewed. It was then thrown out and it was only decided that there was definitely an inappropriate relationship and he probably did it but there wasn’t enough evidence to prove for sure. Not enough to charge but enough to lose custody of his children. And I believe it was a choice by Mia to not pursue it further to spare the little girl the torment of a trial. He’s not refuting evidence by providing proof he wasn’t where they said at those times or even showing a pattern of behaviour inconsistent with the allegations, he’s just deflecting attention by saying her crazy mother made her lie. If he is so concerned then why hasn’t he filed charges or sued? To spare the indignities that would come with a trial that won’t help to heal when it’s done, he says. When he says it it’s noble. But when the same is said of an alleged victim, they’re lying.
I totally respect your comments about the case, but it is all speculative. We don’t know the facts. We only know what we read from second and third-hand sources. We only know what Mia, Woody and Dylan are saying, and all the stories are different. You can’t purport to know the truth based on what you’ve read here any more than I can. Nobody has the full story except those involved, and unfortunately, we don’t know any of the three of them well enough to make these sort of assumptions about who is actually telling the truth.
I’m not trying to blame the victim, I’m just saying that justice should be blind and while the justice system isn’t perfect, it’s still the fairest process we have. TRUTH and FACT are different and it seems many are falling into this trap of thinking that what Dylan says is fact, when actually, it is really only her truth. Without actual facts (consistent witnesses and accounts, evidence), there isn’t a lot out there to protect victims and that’s the harsh reality.
We also shouldn’t presumes one’s guilt based on actions they haven’t taken. The word witch-hunt has been used a few times and I believe there is mob mentality happening because it feels like the right thing to do, stand with the female victim. My sister-in-law is a real victim of sexual abuse so I’m no outsider to this kind of bravery on the part of the victim, but I think that as a responsible society, we need to be objective and let the legal system do its job instead of being judge, jury and executioner. If the people who are supposed to do this job can’t even do it successfully, then I think the general public at large is completely unqualified to have so many preconceived opinions about the monster Woody Allen is.
I have a hard time forming an opinion on this. I believe Dylan and I believe her suffering is real, but at the same time I cannot automatically label Woody as guilty because there is no way to know what really happened or to view all of the evidence. It’s a shame that a criminal trial never happened back in the ’90s. Sexual assault versus false accusations. It’s horrible either way.
Edit: my thoughts aren’t coming out very clearly. I just want to make clear that I don’t think Dylan is lying. I just think that I don’t feel comfortable forming an opinion about Woody without there having been a real trial.
The legal system has never been the best determiner of innocence or guilt in sexual abuse and rape cases, just by the very nature of the crimes themselves. The whole idea that the legal system is the be-all and end-all of what and who society should support is, quite frankly, problematic at best. Suggest it to Trayvon Martin’s family. Or anyone convicted of a crime and later exonerated.
Dylan’s account isn’t “secondhand.” And there’s enough evidence out there to back up what she says. Multiple people observed Woody Allen being inappropriate with her, her pediatrician found cause for alarm, and the only people who decided there had been no abuse destroyed their notes (highly unusual) and refused to testify.
I’m not suggesting it’s the end-all be-all, but it’s the best and only thing we have to rely on and whether you agree or not or think the right decision was made, it’s the BEST and ONLY tool we as a society use to determine guilt or innocence. You have democracy to blame for that, but I wouldn’t be blaming it considering it’s a freedom that we take for granted in North America. At some point, we all had to drop the “OJ did it” thing, even though we all “knew” he did it, because guess what, he was found not guilty and there’s nothing more you can do about it. I’m not saying that Dylan’s stories are second-hand. If you read my words, I actually did refer to her, Mia and Woody’s accounts as separate from the second and third-hand. When I refer to that, I’m talking about all these examples you cite as “enough evidence” or “multiple people observed…” or “her pediatrician found cause for alarm…” You read all of these from other articles that were covering the issue. You didn’t read the actual doctor or police reports or do the investigating yourself firsthand. You are reading one writer’s assessment of the issue, and writers always have a bias or angle, even when they’re not supposed to. Yes, the legal system is flawed, just like everything is flawed, but these are the checks and balances that we put in place to ensure our society is civilized and not in total upheaval. Of course sexual abuse court cases have a looooong way to go before they are considered an effective method of catching the abuser, but that doesn’t mean kangaroo court is the alternative.
At 24, when I had finally overcome enough of the shame and had worked up the courage to tell my father about what his friend did to me when I was 13, he was absolutely disgusted. With me. For lying. It was unfathomable to him that a man who “had never so much as cheated at golf” could possibly do something like that. I wished then that I had continued to keep my terrible secret to myself.
Your comment made me cry. I am really sorry your own father didn’t believe you. I am really sorry for your pain.
I’m so sorry you went through that lithe, and that your father doubted you.
I guess it must be hard to accept that a friend, someone you’ve known and trusted and let have access to your child for years, has hurt them and you didn’t notice. I guess it’s easier to bury your head in the sand. Not that it’s in any way acceptable to do so.
If I had a kid, I’d accept their word until somebody could produce evidence to the contrary. I’ve seen abuse and I’d never ignore a claim of it.
I’m so sorry, Lithe.
NEVER be sorry for speaking the truth. It’s holding it in that makes it so unbearable and generates so much difficulty…. It’s not uncommon for family to refuse to believe the victim – it’s just easier for your father to believe that you are lying than to believe that a friend took advantage of his trust and raped his daughter. It’s incredibly painful to endure your father’s disbelief; trust me, I know. But it’s absolutely necessary. Living a lie is like going through life gagged & bound…Stand your ground and defend yourself – if you don’t, who will?
Thanks for your kind words Kiki, IzzyB, Mari, and Jem. Even with many years of therapy, I still feel broken. So I can’t imagine how much worse off I’d likely be if I had been as young as Dylan was when the abuse took place. My heart breaks for her. But I’m also truly amazed at her courage and although we’ve never met, I feel so, so proud of her.
I completely agree. When I read Dylan’s description of how Woody Allen molested her, it gave me chills because it was so similar to the way I was molested (thankfully only once) when I was a child, right down to my abuser making me lay on my stomach. Her dad told her to play with a train, I was told to look at a picture book. I completely believe her.
Besides, the mere fact that the assault isn’t painted to the extreme leads me to believe it’s true. doesn’t leave physical marks that can easily be pinpointed, so, creeps are “safe”, and because of that it’s one of the favorite molestation methods for them.
This.
Moreover, I disagree with the wording of the headline: Woody Allen is the one making the spurious claim that these memories are implanted; his lawyer just acting as his mouthpiece.
This just makes me ill. Decades later, Woody Allen continues abusing his daughter in one form or another.
I know! Oh, I feel bad for Dylan and for all abuse survivors. It must take tremendous courage to come forward, no matter your age, and to have people discount your experience, not believe you, and try to paint you as lying is just horrible. I believe her. The whole thing is just too sketchy.
It’s crazy! People know child molestation and rape happen, yet whenever someone speaks up about it they’re automatically questioned as if their version of events can’t possibly be accurate?! “Are you sure it really happened that way?”,”Are you sure he wasn’t just being friendly”, etc. Or they’re silenced so they don’t make things awkward for THE ABUSER!
Exactly!
I feel so sorry for Dylan. What a horrible situation for her, and how unendingly painful.
I hope that she finds peace somehow, somewhere.
So, he decided to engage in an ongoing battle with Mia.
He’s being abusive to both her and Dylan. That says it all. This is verbal abuse. It makes it more difficult for me to even entertain notions of him being innocent.
It would have been nice to acknowledge the pain, even if he denied the allegations. He went on an attack, but it is what it is. Immediately bringing up Mia’s name as a culprit will, no doubt, keep the whole thing running.
Barbara Walters failed to discuss Sherri’s point of view. Kudos to Sherri this time around who brought good points and left Barbara “speechless”…ha!
ps: I don’t care if Mia had motivations. And If she had? Can you blame a mother for defending her daughter? I truly believe Dylan.
Even Jenny McCarthy rallied against Barbara’s view point. I am so disgusted with Barbara Walters right now. What she did yesterday was shameful. “I’ve seen him with his daughters and he is the most sensitive and caring loving father……..” SHe left out the part where he is the husband of one of his daughters.
Yes, she did. But Sherri brought up he married his step daughter and started having a relationship when she was underage. Whoopi just stood there in silence.
Barbara Walters is an asskiss of the highest order. She has been this way for years. She fancies herself an important celebrity so she is unable to apply any dispassionate observance of events/issues, since she is ‘one of them’. It’s a damned shame that ‘journalism’ has ever been associated with her name. She is more impressed with herself by name-dropping, rather than applying any objective analysis or logic to her opinions. She is a bit of a joke at this point.
I think Whoopi stayed out of this after her rape rape debacle last year involving, yes another alleged pedo and rapist, Roman Polanski.
How does Barbara know how it is behind closed doors? Wake up.
Right. Because the idea that Mia is so crazy and vindictive that she’d force her own daughter to believe she’d been repeatedly abused, and that Dylan is so impressionable and unstable that even as a grown woman, she doesn’t really understand her own life experiences, is WAY more plausible than the possibility a man who married his own daughter, makes numerous films where he gets romantically involved with much younger women, “joked” about how it wouldn’t surprise anyone if he was found “in bed with 15 12-year-olds,” and used his first wife’s violent rape as fodder for his stand-up routine is a pedophile. (There’s more, if anyone can stomach reading it–this person compiled information from sources that are listed at the bottom of the post: http://loganmars.tumblr.com/post/75553228329/things-to-think-about-before-you-say-well –be warned, you’ll want to vomit.)
This whole thing makes me sick. And people wonder why victims don’t come forward more.
^This 100%
+1. Well said!
Thank you
Exactly.
Exactly. With all of this character-evidence, people still prefer to question the victim. It’s heartbreaking.
Exactly! Shocking how people lack empathy! I wonder what would they say if that happened in their family… Singer Marina and the Diamonds also commented on her twitter.
Not to mention that 7 year olds DO have the ability to retain correct memories of intensely good or bad experiences, they don’t need coaching. If anything they gain the ability to better express what exactly happened, in a way they can’t as 7 years old, with their more limited vocabulary. and that now, as an adult, she has no doubt of it, and went so far as exposing herself in once again stating it really did happen. That’s a big one, considering the tendency to not believe victims, especially since the type of assault she went through doesn’t leave physical long-lasting scars that can be scrutinized years after the fact.
Thanks for the link- disgusting.
This. His face reflects a certain amount of embarrassment if you ask me. HE IS SUCH A POS and I hope Dylan can secure the happiness and peace she deserves. Calling him directly out in the piece is the first step.
Yes, this exactly.
The timing isn’t suspect. Anyone who knows anything about repeated childhood sexual trauma knows the timing is just about right. It takes 20 years or more to get to a point where you can even admit it really happened and that it’s time to deal with it. Coming forward with it means reliving the trauma again which takes considerable strength and courage.
I believe he did it. I also feel that when an abuse victim see’s their abuser in the newes or being praised it can really stir up some emotions. I praise Mia for believing her daughter and standing up for her. It seems more often then not people look the other way.
Another point I’d like to add. If a person was wrongly accused of doing one of the most evil of crimes. I’d want to clear my name and there would be serious legal action. I’d fight like hell.
I know I’d fight until nothing was left.
I find it odd that he’s not arguing her memories, he’s just arguing who put them there,
No one could convince me that he didn’t do it.
I always wonder…if he were truly innocent, HE would show up to protest his innocence. If someone accuses me of doing something heinous that I DID NOT do, I would protest and fight like hell for the truth to come out. I always find it telling when people don’t deny the charges. If he said, “No, I never molested her. I would never do that. I am innocent.”, every time he was questioned, that would make more sense. He never denies it. That’s sketchy.
As others here at CB can attest, it can take years, decades even, to be ready to admit that you were molested or a victim of domestic violence. I say “admit” because that’s how it feels: like a confession. “Admit”, “confess,” “secret,” those are words we generally associate with guilt of some kind, and that’s the very heart of the problem: After the abuser’s acts, you feel dirtied, somehow to blame, and you’re humiliated at the idea of the world ever knowing this dirty secret about you…because it IS “about” you as much as it’s about your abuser, simply because by his act he has remade you into a flawed and tarnished thing. Or anyway, so it seems when it’s yourself.
Years can go by after what was done to you, decades can pass – most of a lifetime, even – and then one day you happen to see or hear something that suddenly triggers the thought of it inside you in a different way entirely than ever before. You feel this weird urgency, this push, this sudden desperate need to get it OUT of you, to finally just free yourself – and in so doing, to maybe prevent further abuse from happening to others. Nothing can stop you all of a sudden, you just begin talking or writing about it, it’s like you’re vomiting out the words, the memory, the act itself that was perpetrated on you.
And let’s face it, by its very nature that spontaneous telling of such a dirty secret isn’t likely to seem “proper” or polite in the moment in which you do it! It startles or even offends people because you are, to their minds anyway, befouling their environment, upsetting the status quo, being disruptive of their lives, their peace of mind. Now they wonder if they’ll be expected to sever relations with your abuser, and this throws their lives into chaos because they feel damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
And when your molester or attacker happens to be a prominent, revered person (mine was), it can be a personal, social, or professional liability for anyone to take sides, or even to address the issue at all. It’s just so much easier for them not to believe you, because then nothing is required of them except maybe to show concern or pity for misguided, manipulated you.
I wasn’t brave. i kept my mouth shut for WAY too long because of fear of my abuser and of his power and influence, and just shame, really, and embarrassment, protectiveness of my own privacy. Then one day, in the middle of a big gathering of academic women 3,000 miles from my hometown where it had happened, someone said something unrelated to me or even to the subject of abuse – it was about standing up for something, bearing witness – and it was like my head caught fire! I had no time even to deliberate – I just started speaking, kind of quietly at first, but I could feel myself revving up, gaining in assertiveness as I spoke. No one said much right then, nd I felt like the biggest idiot.
Later I tormented myself about what I’d done. I was embarrassed and scared of how I’d shamed myself, had probably lost standing among my peers, all that. I literally hid out in my tiny office the next day, not wanting to face anyone. I was f’ing mortified at what I’d done. But then the strangest thing happened: one by one, at odd moments over the next couple of days, 4 of those strong, independent women came to my office to confess their own similar experiences. One of them was a lawyer who worked pro bono for victims of abuse–and yet, she said, she herself had been abused and had for several years moved all over the country to hide from her abuser. Then one day she had HER epiphany and decided to go to law school and change things for the victims of abuse.
Ever since that day when I first told my dirty little secret to a gathering of complete strangers, it has felt like if I see another woman struggling in that same way, I need to speak up about it, just the way those women came to speak to me. So, while I can understand how/why Dylan’s revelations may seem oddly-timed, or timed to cause maximum damage, I truly believe that something triggered it in her – maybe Diane Keaton singing a creepily sing-song little nursery rhyme during her acceptance for Woody Allen of his lifetime achievement award – but something in that event caused all the constellations to line up, and her head or her heart caught fire.
So although I can see where people might logically question the timing of Dylan’s revelations, there truly is no logic or deliberation necessary with a thing like this. Dunno if this will make sense to anyone else unless they’ve been through something similar (and I imagine plenty of you have), but this is one of those moments when it feels to me like I have to say something and can’t for the life of me STFU. Sorry for the length of this.
You are brave. Talking about your experiences in any capacity, at any time, is brave, because as we’ve all seen, people will go to extreme and disgusting lengths to try and silence survivors, either to hide their own guilt or because they don’t want to face the uncomfortable truth. Thank you for sharing this.
Thank you for sharing that…your story gave me goosebumps.
Thank you for sharing. You are so brave – I’ll be praying for you
You are so brave to share this painful experience. My heart goes out to you and all the others that have suffered this kind of abuse.
Ladidah, you ARE brave. Girl, we should start calling you Merida, you are so dang brave!
I just read online that a definition of brave is ‘showing courage’.
If your words are not courageous, I am not sure what is . . .
Thinking of you, with thanks.
Thanks, Gine, Blannie, Lucy, Violet, and Nicegirl, for the kind words, and just for understanding what I was trying to say. x
Yes, blame the victims once again. Deprive them of the opportunity to be taken seriously. Defend a sicko who was obsessed with his adopted daughter from the get-go. Pretend it’s OK that he was taking secret nudies of Mia’s then underage daughter because…oh well, she wasn’t his daughter anyway and there were cracks in his relationship with Mia and she’s a nutter so who cares.
There’s going to be a special place in hell for you guys.
It’s nice that st. Woody doesn’t want to sue anyone. That speaks volumes to me: likely he has no case
It means he’s not stupid enough to answer questions under oath, nor does he want anyone else questioned about this matter under oath. This is a man with skeletons in his closet. He doesn’t want any digging into his personal life.
I’m curious: would Mia have grounds to sue him now?
Yeah what a big man. He wants to “spare indignities” … For himself. Thanks to all you brave souls who’ve shared your stories of abuse and survival. And for offering your take on this issue.
How anyone, ANYONE, can defend this man is beyond all reason.
It is clear that he is an amoral disgusting pig.
He crossed all kinds of boundaries and committed countless betrayals when he had an affair with Suhn Yi, the child his longtime lover Mia Farow had adopted.
A CHILD.
One he related to on the level of father and child.
And the sister of his own child…
So many boundaries trampled.
Does this mean that this disgrace of a man molested Dylan?
No.
But as far as I’m concerned, he doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt.
Exactly!! For him to continue blaming Mia for his deeds is reprehensible His 1st wife was 16. His 2nd wife dressed like a child & his 3rd is the daughter of his longtime GF. These are the motives of a person w/serious pedophile tendencies. Is he guilty? I don’t know but I believe he is. Should he be suspect of this despicable behavior? absolutely.
I hope Dylan finds peace
Ya’ll am i the only one that ever gets nauseous that this man was allowed to adopt children, let alone girls again??
Just yesterday I was thinking of how many couples have to go through hell to adopt but this scumbag has adopted girls again way off his age limit and morality limit.
I guess money can buy anything.
Apparently, Dylan’s case file went “missing” from the courthouse. So…I’m going to guess that if Dylan’s case was even brought up in the adoption vetting process, then the social workers were only getting the version of events from Woody Allen’s lawyers.
I thought that since there was no conviction, the case was considered irrelevant to the adoptions? I read that the adoption people couldn’t use it as a reason to deny them.
Not sure if it’s true, but that’s the story I have.
I read that it wasn’t considered because for some “reason” Dylan’s file was never red-flagged so it was never considered in the adoption process like it should’ve been. Everything gets considered in adoption cases.
I’m sure power and money played a huge role in his ability to adopt again. People have lost chances to adopt over having to take anti-depressants for a period of time. But the fact that Woody had an affair with and married his lover’s child? Was accused of child molestation? Had one child who, when given the choice by a custody judge, chose not to see him and two children that he lost complete custody of, one of whom he was barred from seeing entirely? Nah, no problem whatsoever. Let’s give him two more kids!
Yes, how was marrying one of your wife’s children not a…….major impedement??
Way to go, State of New York (I’m assuming ).
Money and star power – most potent currency we have.
No, you’re not alone.
Soon-Yi was a teenager when Mia Farrow found the graphic nudes Woody had taken of her, but I’m sure he started grooming her from the day one. So, that’s at least two daughters he’s abused.
(For those people arguing that Woody isn’t Soon-Yi’s stepfather because he and Mia never officially married, that’s nonsense. Woody is the father of three of Mia’s children, who are Soon-Yi’s half-siblings, making him her de facto stepfather.)
I’m sure he’s abusing his two youngest daughters, with his ‘wife’ trained from childhood to accept his behavior as normal and healthy.
@violet: that’s what I think too.
He has no desire to sue because he knows all his filthy laundry would come tumbling out in mountains and that scares him more.
Exactly. He’s being accused of one of the most vile things a person can be accused of and he’s not gathering his army of lawyers to sue the hell out of Dylan and/or Mia? If you were wrongly accused of such a thing, wouldn’t you be raising all hell? But he can’t, because he’s married to his daughter and he’s got so many more skeletons hidden in the closet.
The thing that makes me believe that Dylan’s story is true, is that Woody married one of his adopted daughters.
I know – that’s sort of the nail in the coffin of his defense.
Just FYI, she wasn’t his adopted daughter…she was Mia’s adopted daughter with Andre Previn. Woody and Mia were never married and he never adopted her.
I’m so happy all this is happening right before the Oscars. Timing is everything. If you want someone to pay for their mistakes you have to hit them where it hurts and in this case is the Oscar season.
Soon Yi is a very unattractive woman with some horrible feet. Where does she stand in all this mess? They have kids together, adopted kids, so I wouldn’t be sleeping soundly if I was her.
DENY- DENY – DENY – ACCUSE , is the routine most often taken to deflect blame.
The last place that Woody Allen wants to be is in a courtroom, testifying under oath.
Yes, Mia Farrow–who had ‘no’ problem at all separating herself from Frank Sinatra and Andre Previn–just can’t seem to get over Woody Allen’s whiny, neurotic ass. Right.
Woody Allen, and his films, have been nominated for awards several times in the 20 odd years since all of this hit the fan. Why would Mia Farrow just ‘now’ be so consumed with devious, vengeful, jealous to the point of trying to tarnish Woody Allen’s award?
“Yes, Mia Farrow–who had ‘no’ problem at all separating herself from Frank Sinatra and Andre Previn–just can’t seem to get over Woody Allen’s whiny, neurotic ass. Right.”
HA HA HA HA! Great point! Love it!
Except Mia did not separate her ass from Sinatra. She has admitted sleeping with him while she was with Woody and also stated that Satchel/Ronan may be Sinatra’s son.
You know, when I was a small child I also had a story implanted in my head that was reinforced for years, with any suggestions otherwise quickly shot down and minimized. But guess what?Regardless of the intentions behind it, I eventually knew it to not be true and no amount of convincing would make me believe it or continue to tell of my belief of it to friends or family. That my friends, was Santa Claus. I am in no way meaning to trivialize this terrible situation but the smear-y suggestion that a 7 year old could get be forever implanted with a hurtful, damaging, horrible story that even as an adult (who is of sound enough mind to change her name, move far away and stay quiet for years with the foresight that she’d be ripped to shreds in the media) she just regurgitates verbatim? That’s trivializing.
I think that before Dylan herself was coming out publicly, it was easy for his supporters and the willfully ignorant to believe that “Mia’s a nutcase” was a suitable enough reason to comfortably live in the who-knows camp. But now with the blatant calling out of his supporters (bravo) and more people showing support for the Farrow family, they are changing tactics to being “sure, she’s sticking to her story and seems believable but it was implanted there by her vindictive harpy mother” bashing Mia and “lovingly” undermining his adopted daughter in one fell swoop. This allows for the rest of the abuse-doubters and supporters to attack on all of the other fronts that may appear unseemly for this elderly, artistic loving husband and father. This is a perfect example of “Don’t pay attention to the man behind the curtain.”
Comment in wrong place…sorry!
You’re so right! I think about the implanted memory thing a lot. And perhaps if Dylan, at 7, said that these things happened in the past, that would work, but she was talking about things which were ongoing. And things which she thought were normal, because that’s what she knew of a father/daughter relationship.
I have 3 kids – I could definitely make my 4 year old believe anything. But my 8 year old? No way. Small children fictionalize (under 5) in a way that older children (over 5 or 6) just do not. Most 7 year olds have a pretty firm grip on reality. Such a disgusting man.
Exactly. I have an almost 6 year old and there is no way I could make her believe something that wasn’t true. Santa Claus is a concept she enjoys but she has never really truly believed the story.
I believe that you can force someone to say things that aren’t true but Dylan wouldn’t be curling up in a fetal position and suffering for it.
Agreed, I put on another post that my mom tried re-writing a memory I witnessed at the age of 7. I saw her kiss another man, not my father, and she tried desperately to convince me I was mistaken….and I didn’t see what I perceived. She was worried I’d tell my father. I never told my dad, but I still vividly recall that night…regardless what my mom tried coaching me.
@really: so well said. Glad you were able to shake off the Santa implant 🙂
Keep digging that hole, Woody…and then throw your sick self into it.
So disgusted…by him, and by all the “apologists” at certain NY and LA based blogs yesterday. People who are believing that daily beast essay without question are just spouting it all over the internet and using it as “proof” of his innocence. Gotta hand it to his friends. They put out some really good spin, and his fans are spreading it like a virus. The “intelligentsia” twisting themselves into pretzels to defend him is a sight to behold (looking at you, Vulture). Didn’t even bother to comment anywhere else but here. Totally pointless.
Barbara Walters supports him? Not surprised at all. NY society closes ranks around their own. If the tide turns against him, watching them jump ship en mass and try to backstroke is always entertaining.
Obviously, I’m still firmly in Dylan’s corner.
“He was determined not to have molested his daughter 20 years ago.”
Who exactly determined this? All we know for sure is that Woody was stripped of custody and the case didn’t go to trial to spare the victim from testifying.
Yea that wording is so bizarre…
Says a lot to me. Like, Woody is determined he didn’t abuse her, just like his camp is determined Dylan made this memory up.
I’m just surprised the interviewer didn’t jump on that statement. He’s trying to make it sound like some court or authority determined Allen’s innocence. Fine, I want to know who determined that and how. They can state he was never found guilty of a crime, that’s technically true because it didn’t go to trial. That’s not the same as being acquitted or vindicated.
His go-to reference is, and always has been, the Yale-New Haven medical team who concluded Dylan either lied or the memories were planted by Mia.
Of course he always fails to include that this is the same team who:
-refused to interview anyone who was corroborating Dylan’s claims and who’d witnessed any inappropriate behavior between Woody/Dylan
-at least one of the doctors on the team called Dylan in 9 times to question her but then actually never did interview or examine her but still conclusively said she wasn’t molested
-all lost or destroyed their notes and records that supported their findings
-all but one of them have refused to testify to this day as to their conclusion
But, yeah, they totally exonerated Woody.
This is quite meta – Woody Allen is accusing Mia Farrow of gaslighting, which he’s currently doing.
Who can say with certain what happened besides Dylan and Woody. If he did it, he is scum. He already has shown he has weird boundaries by taking up with and MARRYING his adopted daughter. That is insane.
I have always loved his films, I admit.
This is entirely tragic.
Also, does anyone know if Dylan said specifically what happened? I’ve only read the reports that have her saying that he took her to an attic and it was implied, but is there another publication t hat perhaps published more than that? If so, do tell.
LOOK UP THE DETAILS YOURSELF, Helvetica. Your post is gross and salacious in tone. I’m about to throw up.
I’m sure you didn’t mean it this way, but I’m disgusted with every sentence you wrote concluding with a sunny “Do Tell!”
I asked if anyone knew because if someone knew they could tell me. How that is offensive to you is beyond me.
Your post is actually quite salacious and very rude toward mine. Also you say
“I’m sure you didn’t mean it” yet you are going off on a tangent about being disgusted. A sunny “do tell?” Really?
Asking a question is hardly offensive.
Sloane Wyatt +1
@Sloane, I need to say I appreciate your posts on this subject. Any time I go to make a point, you’ve articulated it first.
Sloane, FTW.
Did you read Dylan’s letter? The details are there. No need for us to “tell.”
This whole situation is very sad for everyone concerned. Including Woody. I do question the timing of rehashing all of this…seems just a tad vindictive to me.
I think a 7 year old that was raped by her adoptive father is entitled to be a bit vindictive if she wants too.
Calling “vindictive” to a victim (or if you prefer, even “probable victim”) of sexual abuse from a fatherly figure in her childhood sounds a tad unsympathetic, heartless and not the most intelligent thing to say. There is a serious “blame the victim” tone behind your comment.
Why question the timing, it never went away, this issue have been raised over and over again through out the years anytime the people involve are the focus of the media.
This is not the first time Ronan have made his feelings known about what he believe happened.
What is new is that this is the first time in years that someone that is associated to Woody choose to respond to one of Mia’s and Ronan’s public jabs at Woody with the article in the Daily Beast.It’s easy to paint Mia as the adulterous ,vindictive woman scorned it’s a narrative a lot of people will willingly accept, what they did expect that Dylan would for the first time speak out and defend herself and her mother and that is why it have been given more traction in the news. It’s no longer just Mia’s word against Woody’s in the public domain.
Or maybe it’s in response to that Daily Beast article a few weeks back, calling into question what happened with her and Woody? Maybe it’s that she watched him being feted at the Golden Globes and couldn’t stand to sit by and say nothing for any longer?
Whatever her reason, she has every right to tell her story when and how she wants to. Calling it “vindictive” is just another way of putting the blame on her and letting Woody off the hook for what he did.
Ruining a 7 year old’s life is more vindictive than that pervert (he has no name to me) losing an Oscar. He can at least make more stupid movies while he damaged Dylan for most of her life. Sorry I don’t agree with you.
If someone molested my daughter, you damn well bet I would be on the rampage. I am tired of hearing people fault Mia. Maybe her feelings are well founded.
Implanted memories is a fad theory. The more usual outcome is for the victim to be shamed and gas lighted into silence. We live in a rape culture where protecting and identifying with whoever is in power takes precedence over everything. Do here he is taking aim at Mia. Oh, but Mia is the one who has a grudge. Yeah sure.
This man has disgusted me since my own childhood…and I don’t always take victims for their word…but there’s seriously something wrong with this man and I believe Dylan was abused by him. Maybe growing up, it grossed me out that he was marrying his “daughter” who was decades younger than him. To this day, I HAVE NEVER seen or have had a desire to see ANY of his films. I don’t care who is in them, or how great they’re supposed to be. I’ve never been able to swallow supporting him in any way.
I didn’t comment on the Cate Blanchett post, but actors do make a CHOICE to work with this man. And while I don’t think they should be attacked for that decision, I can totally see where Dylan is coming from. It’s that society as a whole as consistently supported this man in some way…and it’s just SO shameful. Actors should choose not to work with him. Period. He should be shunned out of Hollyweird. But I guess that’s not how it goes. He’ll probably never be found guilty of anything, he’s clearly gotten away with horrific abuse …. so the next best thing is to CHOOSE to eliminate him from the public eye. Ugh, he’s disgusting.
InVain, you’re not missing out on contaminating yourself with incredibly cynical nihilistic gems like “Crimes and Misdemeanors” and “Manhattan”.
Knowing what we now know about a ratdick slime who leaves spread eagle photos of his long time girlfriend’s mentally challenged daughter (the sister of his adopted and bio children BTW) on the fireplace mantle for Mia to find, Woody Allen’s delight in cruelty and his depraved indifference to the sanctity of innocence is the glaringly obvious major thread running through all his thinly veiled autobiographical movies. I feel dirty for having watched Allen’s perverted psychodramas play out, especially because they are so well done by a master who clearly revels in his subject matter.
What Barbara Walters said is disgusting. When Jenny McCarthy and Dana Loesch are the voices of reason on “The View,” you know things are bad. Of course, Walters also is BFFs with a violent dictator, so…
Same with Stephen King. I was shocked and disappointed in what he said about Dylan Farrow. Regardless of whether on believes she was molested or whether she was manipulated, SHE is the victim here.
JFC he slept with and married a barely-legal girl he had known since she was a little girl, who was his long-time GF’s daughter, who was the sister of his won children.
He had an “affair” aka statutory raped a 17-year-old HS student when he was 41.
Creeper.
I’m wondering what her co-hosts are thinking about her right now. That was an embarrassing display of bad judgment, simple-minded-thinking, lack of education, victim shaming…the list goes on and on.
“He’s caring to his daughters in front of me.” Well what the hell, Barbara!? Does she expect him to be raping his daughters in front of her?! Stupid, stupid woman.
Also, Mia is NOT a supporter of Roman Polanski. She was subpoenaed to appear at a libel trial.
The Daily Beast article was written by Allen’s friend and biographer.
I am also LOVING all the “Mia is a crackpot and crazy” posts. Insane.
Even if he didn’t molest her (nothing will ever convince me he didn’t) the fact that he married his adopted daughter still takes away all of his credibility. He’s a dirty perverted scum bag. The pain that he inflicted on those kids for years and the resentment they have towards him should be enough to show anyone with eyes and a brain that he’s a demented individual.
My heart goes out to Dylan and I do believe her story. As many posters here have pointed out to me on other posts, it can take years, decades for victims to feel able to discuss what happened to them.
I do think we all get stuck in the minutia, it’s easy to get lost in details that may or may not be relevant. We can argue timelines, play photo assumption and speculate on coincidence or conspiracy. I always worry we get lost in one story and miss the bigger picture.
Emily over at xojane wrote this http://www.xojane.com/issues/what-is-it-about-powerful-men-and-very-young-girls about the bigger picture about how screwed up we are in the way we treat young girls and allow men of power and influence to abuse young girls.
Thanks for the link. Generally speaking, they are easy to impress and naive. They don’t require a lot, unlike grown women. And men often compensate their earlier lack of self esteem with money and fame.
So the lawyer is putting out there that a 28 yr old woman’s story is the result of Mia Farrow? Evidently, this story is gaining more traction than they thought it would, hence this response. However, doesn’t appear that this is having the desired response.
Barbara Walters…Jesus take the wheel. Nice try lady. He married his stepdaughter for god sake, and quite frankly, is he going to molest his daughters in front of people??? Of course not. If you’re a predator, you have your “public” persona and a “private” one, so it makes it hard for people to fathom that they could actually do this to another human being. I have a cousin who is adopted and the only day I ever thought of her as “adopted” is the day 30 ago that they told me she was adopted. She was my cousin before then, and since then. I cannot look at her/relate to her as anything other than family. There are moral lines that need to be in place to make children feel safe and to establish trust as a child and the man has marched across everyone of them. This man truly has no emotional/moral boundaries. The fact, that you can lie in wait, to have sex with your stepdaughter is amoral, insidious and the sign of a hardened sociopath of a predator.
The fact that he married his stepdaughter, speaks volume to me and show that the guy is a sicko…I believe Dylan and he should be arrested for pedophilia period!
For the thousandth time: Soon-Yi Previn is NOT Woody’s adopted daughter and is NOT Woody’s stepdaughter.
Christ, Decloo, semantics! He was a long-time father figure to the girl. Does that count for nothing? The bottom line is that the relationship is inappropriate, and only the hard headed keep trying to bang away at that little fact.
No, Soon Yi was just his children’s sister, so Decloo that makes it all hunky dory.
“In December 1991 two events coincided. Mr. Allen’s adoptions of Dylan and Moses were finalized and Mr. Allen began his sexual relationship with their sister Soon-Yi Previn.” – http://www.leagle.com/decision/1994524197AD2d327_1461
I wonder what goes through Soon-Yi’s head. She grew up with him as he father and married him. I wonder if she has really weird boundaries, too as a result of everything that happened… Food for thought.
She did not grow up with him as her father. She and Allen both stated that they barely knew each other when Mia asked Woody to take her to some basketball games because she didn’t get out much. Mia and Woody lived in separate apartments and both stated that he never slept over. Mia had like 12 kids living in her house.
Oh, give it a rest, Decloo. He’d been grooming her for years. If you think the relationship started with nude photos on the precise day she was legal, I have a bridge for you.
What people like to ignore is that he was on probation, as it were, for his treatment of Dylan, when it was discovered he’d been molesting Soon-Yi. Taking nude spread eagle photos is NOT how you start a relationship. It had to have started much earlier.
You are still ignoring the power dynamic. He was still an authority figure, a father figure to her siblings. And taking her out to games was intended to solidify his position as ‘father figure’. Splitting hairs doesn’t make it any less grotesque.
“In my view, she’s not lying. I think she truly believes this happened. That’s what the vice of this is. When you implant a story in a fragile 7-year-old’s mind, it stays there forever. It never goes away.”
——–
Really Mr. Attorney? Where did you get your psych degree?
I believe Dylan. Her story has changed only minimally throughout the years. And her story is not full of details, just vague sketches. She doesn’t go into the kind of detail that is often present in false memory. She discusses her dislike of trains. She discusses her emotions. She discusses her confusion. This is all indicative of a true memory. She was 7. She was not 2 or 3. We tend to forget things that happen to us when we are really little and in a lot of cases only have an “emotional memory” of us. But once we hit the ages of 7-8, we remember more. We not only have an emotional memory, we have recall. This isn’t a repressed memory, it was something that has been maintained since she was a young girl. It seems to me that the attention brought to Woody Allen at this point in time is what may have triggered her to talk about it again. The timing may seem suspect, but if you really think about it, it’s not.
In any event, the statute of limitations has run out and it will forever be he said/she said. We really have to find a way to allow a child who was abused/molested to take the stand yet protect her/him from the brutality of defense cross examination. It has been discussed that examination of a child witness possibly be done by a court appointed neutral mental health professional, with defense and prosecution questions submitted to the mental health professional so there can be a rephrasing of the questions in a way that is not traumatic to the child.
Thank you, paranormalgirl. I don’t know where you got your degree, but I know you’ve got one!
But I think I read something yesterday that said the statute hasn’t run out yet and Dylan could still sue. I should go see if I can find it again.
Actually, it might not have run out. I think you’re right and I’m wrong. Dammit Jim, I’m a DOCTOR not an attorney 😀
(and I went to the University of Vermont and NYU Medical)
The statue of limitations has run out for Dylan to go after Allen in a criminal court. That’s probably why Allen’s lawyer is out there – a civil court has a lower burden of proof for Dylan, and the Court of Public Opinion even lower.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, very insightful!
“It has been discussed that examination of a child witness possibly be done by a court appointed neutral mental health professional, with defense and prosecution questions submitted to the mental health professional so there can be a rephrasing of the questions in a way that is not traumatic to the child”
I think that sounds like a REALLY good idea. There needs to be a better way to bring people to justice.
I may go too far but…. when I look at Woody and Soon-Yi’s daughter on the photo (she’s the girl behind Soon-Yi), I’m afraid he could be doing it again.
I had this feeling when I first saw this young girl two days ago (I think), on a photo with her other sister and Woody at a game. She reminds me of Soon-Yi at the same age. (I don’t know her age though).
I hope I’m wrong.
And I don’t know if I was doing too much body language reading after the fact, but there’s a photo of him hugging his daughters somewhere (it was taken a couple of years ago?) and one of the girls seems like she’s doing everything she can to distance herself; her body really seems to arch away from him. Much more than normal.
There’s some recent footage TMZ has, where they confront Woody Allen on the street about Dylan, only one day after Dylan’s NYT piece has come out – sensitive father that he is, he decided to take the two young teens (13 and 14?) with him so they too could be embarrassed by the barrage of questions (10 to 1 they wanted NO part of that) .
Anyway, at one point TMZ is asking Allen a question about Dylan and he’s trying to pretend he’s on the phone, and the girls are just standing there, there bodies pointed away from him, looking elsewhere, the white daughter who looks sullen in almost all of the pics I’ve seen, arms crossed, looks over her shoulder at him, and seems to roll her eyes in total disgust and contempt at Allen.
I have a bad feeling. I’m sure we’ll hear their stories when they grow up and/or he’s no longer around.
Dlisted’s post on Saturday (almost 1500 comments) has very good pictures past and present. The children look like Soon-Yi and Dylan; picture of Woody and Mia with Dylan, Ronan and Soon-Yi, then with the adopted children a few years ago. It does look like he basically replaced Dylan and Soon Yi with the adopted children looks wise (one White one Asian).
@Anon : oh my, you’re right, that’s beyond creepy…
this is all very disgusting, and most importantly very very sad for these girls
@PS : Those pictures are very telling to me. I have not finished reading any threads on this subject yet as they are so long. I will say this: Child molesters and Rapists will continue to do what they do; they know their victims are questioned and not believed for the most part. Most rapists and molesters know the victim will be blamed and rarely believed. Hard to have proof of the deeds they commit and they know it. No need for them to worry or stop. SMH
Woody Allen has a well established pattern of needing women to be in his total control. That might not prove he’s a pedophile but it certainly makes me question everyone who’s so quick to defend him.
The only thing perfectly clear in this sad situation is that, without physical evidence, we will never actually know what happened. I have compassion for all survivors of sexual abuse but I also have compassion for all of those who have been wrongly accused and whose lives have been ruined. People may not like Woody Allen. They may not like his unconventional relationship with Mia Farrow, during which time they maintained separate households and both admit that he never slept over. They may not like that Woody began a consensual relationship with Mia’s daughter who was 20 at the time. They may not like that he took nude photos of her. They may not like that he cheated on his girlfriend, Mia. But none of these things makes Woody a child molester, so they cannot be used against him in the sexual abuse allegations. Yes, children suffer the world over from sexual abuse and it’s a tragedy. It’s also a fact that spouses in acrimonious divorces will sometimes unjustly accuse a parent of sexual abuse of their child. It’s a fact that young children, through no fault of their own, can be coerced into misconstruing certain physical contact with a person just as it is a fact that “false memories” can become so real that they are as damaging to a person as real memories. Can’t we all agree that we don’t know what happened here and just feel compassion for all who are suffering because of this?
This.
My cousin was falsely accused of molesting his sister. It happens. That being said, I I think Dylan is telling the truth, but I will always have a bit of doubt. This is indeed horrible for all involved. Sad.
http://theenlivenproject.com/the-truth-about-false-accusation/
http://www.stanford.edu/group/maan/cgi-bin/?page_id=297
A man is more likely to be raped than accused falsely of rape.
False memories are extremely rare and most psychologists today don’t put any water in the theory. Please do some research on this.
All this is true. It’s not that easy to plant a false memory – especially in someone 7 or older.
Oh please. Stop with the ‘unconventional’ part as a way of explaining away people’s distaste for Woody, as if they aren’t sophisticated or urbane enough to understand it. He was in a relationship with Soon Yi’s mother, he was the father of Soon Yi’s siblings, he was in a position of power and authority. Soon Yi was incredibly young, although legal, but vulnerable with a history of past abuse, and he could have avoided creating enormous pain by breaking up with Mia. Or, more ethically, avoided a sexual relationship altogether with his childrens’ sibling.
Because he makes films, the high brow ‘unconventional’ is tossed about, but really, he was no less disgustingly unthoughtful, extraordinarily selfish, and completely uncaring about the ramifications of his actions on this family than any other participant of a Jerry Springer show. Only in his case, his actions were worse because he was smart enough to know better, and because of his fame, those who suffered long term consequences are supposed to ‘zip it’ and move on.
Of course I can’t say whether Dylan was molested or whether Mia manipulated her, but his actions as a very old adult, at the time with Soon Yi, fall way outside of ‘unconventional’.
NO, Decloo, we cannot all throw up our hands and say “no one knows what happened here”. We DO KNOW.
We know that for TWO YEARS prior to being caught abusing Dylan, he was seeing the psychotherapist Dr. Susan Coats for his continuous fondling and abnormal fixation on her. We know that Woody displayed spread eagle pornographic photos of his long term girlfriends daughter on the fireplace mantle for Mia to find. We know the complete official court papers of the original case of ALLEN v. FARROW (May 1994) here. – http://www.leagle.com/decision/1994524197AD2d327_1461
@Sloanne, there was no notation on this, in the documents you linked to:
“We know that for TWO YEARS prior to being caught abusing Dylan, he was seeing the psychotherapist Dr. Susan Coats for his continuous fondling and abnormal fixation on her.”
Sloane Wyatt, you are dead wrong. How on earth do YOU know went on in Allen’s psychotherapy sessions which are privileged? Woody’s photos of the OVER 18 and consensual Soon-Yi were NOT DISPLAYED FOR MIA TO SEE, but hidden and were accidentally found. Connecticut officials DECLINED to press charges. There are all sorts of stories floating around the internet. Be more careful about what you take to be fact.
@ kiddo, “In 1990 both Dylan and Satchel were evaluated by clinical psychologists. Dr. Coates began treatment of Satchel in 1990. …… it is evident that there are issues concerning Mr. Allen’s inappropriately intense relationship with this child that can be resolved only in a therapeutic setting.” – http://www.leagle.com/decision/1994524197AD2d327_1461
Both Woody and Dylan were in treatment until 1992; that’s two years. The exact nature of the sickening details of her many, many additional abuse instances were extensively documented here. http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/archive/1992/11/farrow199211
@ Decloo,
Why Dylan went into treatment is not just in the Vanity Fair link I cited, it’s also right there in the link below of their legal proceedings, “The record demonstrates that Ms. Farrow expressed concern to Allen about his relationship with Dylan, and that Allen expressed his concern to Ms. Farrow about her relationship [197 A.D.2d 331]
with Satchel.”
Those pornographic photos of Soon Yi were NOT HIDDEN. “In January of 1992, Mr. Allen took the photographs of Ms. Previn, which were discovered on the mantelpiece in his apartment by Ms. Farrow and were introduced into evidence at the IAS proceeding.” – http://www.leagle.com/decision/1994524197AD2d327_1461
I just have to say it boggles my mind, Decloo, that you would chide me to be responsible with the facts when you don’t even bother to read the court proceedings I provided in their entirety!
@Sloane Wyatt, I still don’t see this: “Allen’s inappropriately intense relationship with this child that can be resolved only in a therapeutic setting.” I have looked several times and did a “find” with my computer. Can not find that quote.
The Vanity Fair piece is predominately in one court, and a narrative driven by a perspective. I would have liked to have seen it in actual documents, but it doesn’t really matter since I’m not a juror.
Try searching for “therapeutic setting”, kiddo. The phrase is about 18 paragraphs in. I hope this helps.
@Sloane. The photos of Soon-yi were found by Mia under a box of tissues on the mantel. They were not on display.
Furthermore, when I questioned how you knew about what was discussed in Woody’s psychiatric treatment, you cite the following quote: “The record demonstrates that Ms. Farrow expressed concern to Allen about his relationship with Dylan, and that Allen expressed his concern to Ms. Farrow about her relationship [197 A.D.2d 331] with Satchel.” Not sure how that’s relevant.
@Sloane. “The photos of Soon-yi were found by Mia under a box of tissues on the mantel. They were not on display.” – Decloo
They certainly weren’t stashed hidden in the garage. Using a Kleenex box as a paperweight for his stack of nudies on the fireplace mantle is not exactly squirreling away his trophies from Mia’s gaze.
Simply put, there’s not enough room to cut and paste the entire Court decision against Woody in the Celebitchy comment section. The quote you deemed irrelevant followed on the heels of the Court stating “Allen’s inappropriately intense relationship with this child that can be resolved only in a therapeutic setting.” You can find this quote in about the 4th paragraph of the Court ruling against Allen’s custody petition for Dylan and Satchel. – http://www.leagle.com/decision/1994524197AD2d327_1461
If you have a change of heart about actually reading the Court ruling, you’d see for yourself the Court rendered narrative of Woody Allen being in therapy for 2 years specifically for his unnatural fixation on Dylan. I should probably hang this up, but I’m flabbergasted that you’re so comfortable with talking nonsense.
Most victims will never speak up.
Children who make up lies because they’re parents made them, don’t still believe them 20 years later.
Molestation occurs in countless ways that do not leave physical evidence.
It’s not about Mia, it’s not about Soon-Yi, it’s about the fact his daughter stated categorically that he molested her.
So no. I will never feel compassion for a person who violated the trust and body of another person.
I’m wondering, has Woody Allen ever made any attempt to have Mia charged with abuse? Because surely “implanting false memories” has to be considered a form of abuse? The idea that Mia was so determined to hurt Woody that she would permanently psychologically scar her daughter would seem to demand some kind of response – yet this allegedly loving father just abandoned Dylan. Why? Would you be willing to just give up, if someone did that to your child? I wouldn’t.
Woody tried to sue Mia for custody. It backfired on him big time. He lost custody of both Satchel/Ronan and Dylan/Malone, Moses was given a choice and chose not to see Woody, and Woody was barred from having any contact with Dylan/Malone period and could only have supervised visitation with Ronan/Satchel.
Exactly. What’s more, the courts gave Mia complete primary custody, with Allen getting only limited supervised visitation of ‘Satchel’ nee Ronan, and absolutely NO visitation with Dylan.
Barbara Walters is a giant A-HOLE. Everybody thought Jerry Sandusky was a “good guy” too. Does Barbara think pedophiles announce themselves to the public? Woody A. is a total pervert. I believe Dylan and shudder to think what his adopted daughters may have endured.
Desperate much Woody? Having your lawyer go out and slam Mia and Dylan only serves to have more people doubt YOUR credibility. Look at the Chris Christie “Bridge-gate” scandal, where his mouthpieces are going out and digging up dirt on a potential snitch Wildstein (sp) and talking about what this guy did in HIGH SCHOOL. That’s how desperate Woody looks now. And Allen will not have the stones to sue Dylan, Mia and Ronan for defamation of character because Allen would have to PROVE that what they said is not true.
I would not be surprised if “The View” and ABC get a lot of angry e-mails and calls because of Barbara’s defense of Allen. In the Court of Public Opinion it’s still majority Team Dylan. I think that is due not only to past sex abuse scandals (Catholic Church, Penn State) but also to heartbreaking stories posted on this blog and others about their own experiences with sexual abuse. Those stories are touching people in a way to make them more willing to believe Dylan and dismiss Allen’s arguments as self-serving.
To those who posted here: I am so sorry that you have had such a horror visited upon you. Brava to having the courage to write about it in a blog; and may you continue to strive to get the peace you so richly need and deserve.
I think The View already heard from a lot of very angry people, because Babs was back pedaling so fast this morning, it was a sight to see! LOL She tried to clarify what she meant, and she is now claiming she didn’t mean to cast doubt on Dylan’s story. It was so great. She even kissed Sherry on the cheek, pretending to makeup. I was like daaaang. I have to say I have new respect for Sherry and Jenny McCarthy, liked how they gave it to Barbara yesterday. Whoopie as usual, just sat there collecting her paycheck. Maybe she’s still trying to get a part in a Woody Allen movie.
The View did get some heat:
http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/celebrities/view-co-host-barbara-walters-under-fire-for-defending-woody-allen-1.6945684
Congrats, Babs. Your role as celebrity canary going into the mine shaft (and coming out a figurative corpse) is sending a chilling message to the rest of Hollywood and the glitterati: defend Woody Allen on this at your own professional peril.
Classic case of Blame the Victim. By creating such a hostile environment around a person coming forward to report abuse such as this, who knows how many cases of behavior such as this have gone unreported~unpunished~unspeakably tolerated due to the victim being attacked not just the first time but having to live it over and over again, with the already awful feelings of “dirtiness” and “wrongness” that accompany such unspeakably vile acts. Even when victims realize that it wasn’t their fault, there is STILL such a climate of shame and guilt and pain around the episode(s) that the emotional devastation of revealing them is almost as bad as the episode itself. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is literally the body, as a whole~physical and mental~reliving an episode of extreme distress, and reacting to it over and over again, which wipes out the adrenal glands by causing the “fight or flight” response to be activated. And yes, the people who continue to work with this cretin are tacitly (silence is assent) acknowledging that this is ok. It isn’t ok.
One last thing: of course his lawyers aren’t going to press defamation lawsuits against Dylan Farrow. It isn’t defamation if it is true, and I’m pretty sure the LAST thing woody allen wants is to have this re-opened again where now~as a grown woman~Dylan can adequately describe and detail the abuse that she was unable to articulate as a 7 year old LITTLE GIRL.
I personally think that’s why she held back on details. I get the feeling she’s waiting on him to try it. If he’s smart, he’ll back off.
Interestingly enough, Allen Dershowitz (who assisted Mia when all this ugliness broke out), described Allen as having denied everything at the time, including being in the attic room, but the police dusted for prints (and gah knows what else) and found evidence, and it was at that point he said, ‘Well, I might have gone in there.’
Ugh
I’ve always categorized Woody Allen with Roman Polanski.
Barbara Walter’s has always been such a hypocrite. If she is a friend of both of them, than she should not have said anything. She should have kept her big mouth shut.
One of Woody Allen’s most famous movies, Manhattan, was based on the relationship he had with high school student Stacey Nelkin when she was 17. His 12 year relationship with Mia Farrow came to an end when she found nude pictures he had taken of her daughter Soon-Yi. Soon-Yi was 19 at the time, but published reports estimate her age in the photographs at 16 or 17. He married her when she was 20, and he was 55. He had known her since she was 7. These are facts. So I don’t find it a great leap to believe Dylan Farrow’s list of his grooming behaviors before he began assaulting her: his thumb in her mouth, putting his face in her lap when she was naked, etc. In order to have progressed to a point where he was taking nude photographs of Soon-Yi, he had obviously been grooming her for some time also.
There is so much here that makes me angry. One thing is that articles keep describing Soon-Yi as Mia’s adopted daughter. I have never had an acquaintance describe their child as “my adopted son, my adopted daughter”, they are their children. Constantly describing Soon-Yi as the adopted daughter seems to me to be attempts to minimize Mia’s connection to her. Allen’s supporters claim that Mia’s actions on discovering WA’s relationship with Soon-Yi were those of a jealous cast-off lover. How about the heartbreak and anger of a mother who discovered that he had assaulted not one, but two of her daughters. And here is another fact; when he married Soon-Yi, he married the daughter of his partner of 12 years, he married his son Ronan’s sister. Another fact, he had all his parental rights to Ronan stripped, and was given no visitation at all. Why didn’t he fight to see Ronan? Was he afraid what would be revealed in court? I would fight to the ends of the earth for my sons. Woody Allen did not.
I have read comments deriding Mia Farrow. I have nothing but empathy for her as a mother. I can’t imagine the guilt and heartache she suffered when she realized that she had unknowingly introduced a predator into her family. It is unbearably sad to me that Woody Allen’s position as an acclaimed artist has led people to turn a blind eye to his predations.
I believe Dylan.
Excellent. BRAVO. This is a keeper Dimepiece. Will refer back to it often when I encounter idiots on this issue.
Regarding The View yesterday —
There’s a point in the Barbara Walters rant (The View which aired yesterday), where she gets this creepy AHA! look on her face, as she gets ready to lower the boom (so SHE thinks) on what Dylan’s supposed motive is, she says, ‘it’s because he’s up for AN AWARD.’ It was truly sickening, and borderline insane.
.
That’s when I knew, Babs is most definitely slipping away. Oh sure Barbara, because this is the very first time Allen has been feted or awarded or nominated for anything in the last 20 years? WRONG. This is how jacked up, that line of thinking is (and make no mistake this is Allen’s camp pushing this supposed motivation, I heard it last night from others on Piers Morgan) – these are all of the times Allen has been nominated for awards (Oscars) since he tore that family asunder:
.
1992 Husbands and Wives Nominated Best Original Screenplay
1994 Bullets Over Broadway Nominated Best Director
Nominated Best Original Screenplay[III]
1995 Mighty Aphrodite Nominated Best Original Screenplay
1997 Deconstructing Harry Nominated Best Original Screenplay
2005 Match Point Nominated Best Original Screenplay
2011 Midnight in Paris Won Best Original Screenplay
Nominated Best Director
2013 Blue Jasmine Pending Best Original Screenplay
–
For those who say, well….it would only be the films that Dylan’s been aware of, and that have come out since she’s grown into a vengeful adult woman (eyeroll). Okay, let’s go there perv apologists…why wait until now, if “AWARDS” were Dylan’s motivation, she could have also been railing around the time of Match Point in 2005, or Midnight in Paris in 2011. But she did not.
.
To those who are falling for the Mia ‘implanted,’ fiction….and the Mia is behind everything B.S…..if indeed Mia wanted to disrupt his award seasons, she had at least 7 instances of Allen being feted by Oscar w/ a nomination or a win (and those are just the Oscars) dating back to 1992….and yet she hasn’t done diddly.
.
The simplest answer is usually the best and most accurate: It is what Dylan Farrow says it is.
She was a little girl, who’s now grown into a young woman, who wants to finally get HER VOICE and tell the world what Allen did to her as a defenseless, vulnerable child.
Let’s look at what she said inspired her to do that: 1) she wants peace on her death bed and 2) she doesn’t want to carry around the guilt that came from staying silent and endangering other little girls (unspoken: Allen’s adopted daughters)
+10000000! He is a sexual predator. He just is. It’s disgusting and it’s disturbing that anyone in Hollywood would make excuses for such a disturbed, predatory man. I am completely repulsed by Diane and anyone who defends him.
Yes, Dimebox, yes. Thank you for summarizing it so eloquently, pithily, and perfectly.
Edited to add: and a big yes to TheReal and Girlface.
Nope. Lawyer yarn. My heart went out to her when she named names, calling out Diane Keaton, especially after her Globes schmaltz.
can’t sue for defamation if what is being said is factual/truth.
if WA hadn’t been in therapy specifically for his inappropriate behavior with dylan, he would have sued. if this was false, he would have had to sue because it makes dylan’s accusations all the more believable. it has consistently been brought up in most articles and interviews from the farrow side.
if someone was falsely and publicly saying you were being seen by a professional for inappropriate behavior with a child and accusing you of molesting the same child you wouldn’t sue for defamation?!?!
he’s guilty and knows if he tries to go after it in court he’s going to come out looking worse.
i will say this again, why anyone would think she’s doing this for her mother after this many years, after decades of therapy? to maintain this sort of fabrication this long would be exhausting and if it were something she made up as a child she would definitely not want it brought up ever, let alone bring it up, publicly, herself. WA hurt dylan tremendously. if this was something falsely implanted why not give it up? it would be so much easier for dylan to let it go if it weren’t true. she can’t because it is the truth.
who cares about dylan’s timing? WA didn’t care about his.
my heart goes out to all of you that have suffered and are suffering. you didn’t/don’t deserve it.
I just read this enlightening article on Gawker:
http://defamer.gawker.com/the-internet-digs-up-woody-allens-creepy-child-loving-1515815185/@sarah-hedgecock
It includes this quote from Woody Allen:
“I’m open-minded about sex. I’m not above reproach; if anything, I’m below reproach. I mean, if I was caught in a love nest with 15 12-year-old girls tomorrow, people would think, yeah, I always knew that about him.” Allen pauses. “Nothing I could come up with would surprise anyone,” he ventures helplessly. “I admit to it all.”
http://defamer.gawker.com/the-internet-digs-up-woody-allens-creepy-child-loving-1515815185
I don’t know what happened to Dylan but I’m not going to call her a liar. Just as it takes years for a child to grow, it will take longer for a child to process abuse and manipulation to adult understanding. Although they will still feel the abuse as the child they were at the time emotionally.
If Woody was “obsessed” with Dylan as stated in the above article, my red flag indicator as a mom is on full alert. I don’t give two hoots how great an artist one may be or the work they’ve done…what might the children had been if you had not destroyed their lives, pedophile? People like BW, well they have shown themselves to be hypocrites and cover-up artists, forsaking the welfare of children for ratings and $$$.
Of course his lawyer will lie for him. What a shocker! 🙁
It would be easier to believe Woody’s allegations against Mia if the issues Woody had with Dylan only came up out of nowhere during the custody battle, but given that there is documented evidence that they where dealing with Woody’s obsession with Dylan years prior to the battle gives him less ground to stand on.
Also, the fact that the Daily Beast, Robert Weide chose to use Dylan, new identity shows just who little he consider her when he wrote this article.
Omg, he used her new identity in the Daily Beast? How did I not see that? Did that article predate her NYTimes revelations about the molestation? If it did, that would easily have been enough of a violation to trigger Dylan’s decision to tell the world what her father did to her.
In any case, what a horrible, unconscionable thing for anyone to do to a young woman who has clearly been deeply traumatzed, no matter which version of this tragic mess you choose to believe–and I believe Dylan.
Twenty years ago living in Manhattan I was friends with a psychologist consulting on that trial. He attended court. He told me at that time that he believed that Mia had manipulated Dylan and implanted the molestation story. He considered Mia to be extremely unstable and dangerous. Personally, this is what I have believed ever since.
Here are just a few things that “extremely unstable and dangerous woman” has done. From Wikipedia: In 2000 she became a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. She is a high profile advocate for human rights in Africa. In 2007 she co-founded the Olympic Dream for Darfur campaign, which drew attention to China’s support for the government of Sudan. The campaign persuaded Steven Spielberg to withdraw as an artistic advisor to the Olympics in Beijing. In 2008 Time magazine named her one of the most influential people in the world. In 2010 she also testified against former Liberian President Charles Taylor. She has received numerous awards for her work, including the Marian Anderson Award, given annually to “an established artist, not necessarily a singer, who exhibits leadership in a humanitarian area.”
Mia has four biological children, and nine adopted children. She sounds pretty great to me.
Do you realize that children who are sexually abused by strangers, or even within families, often are easier targets when there is dysfunction all around? I can’t know the absolute truth of the matter, none of us can, including the psychologist who had an opinion, but Mia being a nutter is not mutually exclusive from her daughter having been sexually abused, in my mind, that actually makes it more likely, not less. Mia coaching Dylan to say things is also not mutually exclusive from the child experiencing abuse. Victims and their families aren’t always perfect. Look at the types of kids Sandusky set his sights on. Kids with broken homes, single parent homes, lots of chaos; parents, who by their existing idiosyncrasies and faults, aren’t paying enough attention because of their own intersts or responsibilities and who are easier to discount because they appear unhinged.
Just food for thought.
Woody and Mia both disgust me. I feel sorry for Soon Yi. After all Mia introduced her to a predator and then has the nerve to feel betrayed by her when I doubt if Soon Yi had much of a choice. Woody is talented and disgusting. Mia is simply disgusting.
I feel sorry for Soon Yi, too. She was dispensed with, as if she no longer existed as a child. I feel terrible for all of the children, who were wedged between two very self-centered, uncaring adults.
You are totally right. People want these simple, black and white narratives, but as you said victims and their families often aren’t “perfect” and that’s part of why they get targeted. People will twist that, I am sure, but I know what you mean.
Well if you say so, then it must be true. I’m so relieved now. Let’s just forget some crazy wannabe-victim woman and go celebrate Woody’s art again y’all. He seems like such an upstanding guy, totally NOT shady and creepy. Like I said, totally NOT creepy.
I don’t see why CB authors shouldn’t editorialise on this issue. Yes it is very controversial and heated. Yes there are people out there who won’t agree. But most CB readers are in agreement with Kaiser that they believe Dylan’s account of events.
It is a very sad day when Sherri Shephard and Jenny McCarthy are the voices of reason on The View. I never liked that show and I don’t watch it, so I’ll have to watch the clip of when Walters makes these disgusting comments on Youtube. Of course, Whoopi would have remained silent since she isn’t sure if what Woody did was “rape rape” (http://jezebel.com/5369395/whoopi-on-roman-polanski-it-wasnt-rape+rape).
At the end of the day, Barbara will side with her wealthy friends in Hollywood. I am surprised that she didn’t even consider that most of her female watchers would be appalled by what she said. Not surprised she would have to back peddle on her comments.
I just read the Defamer article that people posted a link to above. It seems that most of the hard evidence of Woody’s perversion stems from Woody himself.
It made me feel sick, and it does make everything Dylan said more believable.
I think Dylan is doing this for herself. Who cares about the timing of it? I am sure it has taken many years of heartache and tears to come to the truth and the reality of this situation. I applaud her strength and courage and am disgusted that she may be slaughtered in the media as a result. This is why so many victims do not come forward. They become the ones on trial. It is tragically sad. I, for one, was happy to hear her voice finally and I wish her continued healing in a very horrific process. God help the people that stand behind a pedophile. “Oh he is so loving and caring with his own children.” So was Jerry Sandusky. So are a lot of other monsters. He has had money and power and fame to protect him. I, for one, will never watch another Woody Allen movie again. Dylan, if you read this: You are brave and speak for all of us who cannot or will not come forward. I hope to find the courage one day to do the same.
The tone and tactics of Allen’s defenders are what convinces me he is 100% guilty. Dylan’s story has the horrible ring of truth.
I remember being grossed out by Manhattan when it first came out years ago. Watch Mariel Hemingway’s innocent face in that film and your flesh will crawl.
Any time a guy accused of some type of sexual assault goes into this kind of vicious defense, I automatically click over to the “He’s guilty,” side of the decision. It’s just so heartless and frankly sexist.
I agree with you. I’m a parent. I know that if I were innocent of these horrific acts, and was denied access to my child, I’d fight like hell to both clear my name and get custody back. Nothing would stop me. His reaction makes no sense. Especially if I had his money and power. I wouldn’t simply just give up my child and then make her sound like a liar ever chance I got. His reaction: I’ll just go out and adopt some more kids. WEIRD.
I don’t know what’s true in this case. I find WA disgusting, and will not watch his movies; I have boycotted them since he got involved with Soon Yi. Repulsive.
However, it isn’t necessarily true that Dylan was molested by him. I believe she believes she was, but there’s something weird about Mia and her family. Her brother just got sentenced to 10 years in prison for sexual abuse of a minor. Does that strike anyone else as strange, to say the least? Also, why are they bringing this up again NOW? Why not do it when he could’ve been charged with it, potentially?
It is also true that sometimes kids truly believe they were molested, but they weren’t. If you don’t believe me, start looking into all those high-profile 1980s molestation cases – Fells Acres, McMartin, etc. and get back to me.
Again, I don’t know what’s true and I hate Woody Allen. He could be a molester. But he might not be.
That’s awfully complicated. Why not believe the simplest option? The truth doesn’t tend to be all complicated and twisted and stuff like that. It tends to be lies that get elaborate.
even if you don’t believe dylan ..this perv married his step daughter…that is dis-gust-ting –Jesus
Even if he didn’t do anything, and these are just falsified testimonies, he’s still off, I mean he married his adopted daughter.
Side note: I’m his play version of Play It Again, Sam. I’m kind of regretting being apart of it, but the production process started in late December. Too far in now.
Back to this, if it is true, that he did molest his daughter, I hope she finds peace and justice. I also feel that this should be dealt with privately not spilled out in the public. I understand that Woody Allen is technically a public figure, but things like these, unless they are proven, should not be open to the public. I have known people that were completely innocent accused of things like this, and then their name has been tarnish, and are still dealing with the backlash years later after the innocence is proven.
I believe Dylan Farrow. It’s not just a mere a convenience for her molester that her adopted mother is a rather unhinged woman who taints this whole incident with her shady past. Anyone who knows the profile of a serial molester knows that this is exactly the type of scenario they look for: a mentally unbalanced parent whom they can later cast doubt upon. Look at Jerry Sandusky. He specifically sought out young boys from broken homes whose mothers worked and whose fathers were either totally absent or had little interaction with their sons.
I believe Dylan’s letter. There are too many details in there that could not possibly have come from being coached. It was confirmed that little Dylan went to the babysitter first – not Mia. So, does that mean the babysitter had an axe to grind with Woody, too? Also, in Dylan’s letter she says that on multiple occasions, Mia told her that it was okay to admit if she was lying about the abuse and that she wouldn’t get in trouble. Doesn’t sound like someone coaching a child to me.
And “never being charged” does NOT mean the same thing as “cleared of all charges.” Even the prosecutor in the case said back then that he did have probably cause to charge Allen, but that because of Dylan’s fragile state, he chose not to. That doesn’t mean Allen is a wronged guy!
I believe you, Dylan. Because there is not enough coaching on earth to make a story stick for this long.
Everyone is all ‘Why weren’t charges pressed if Mia and Dylan are telling the truth?’ WHY ISN’T WOODY SUING FOR DEFAMATION IF IT’S NOT TRUE?????