THE adopted daughter of Woody Allen has made renewed sex abuse claims against the award-winning director, saying he molested her when she was seven after she was adopted by him and actress Mia Farrow.
In an open letter to The New York Times, Dylan Farrow made her first public comments about the 1992 incident, telling columnist Nicholas Kristof Allen "got away with what he did" and that it "haunted" her.
Ms Farrow, 28, said she was led to comment after Allen was recently honoured with a Golden Globes lifetime achievement award, and said Hollywood's continued embrace of the director worsened her torment.
Allen was investigated for child molestation but was never charged. However, the investigating prosecutor said there was "probable cause".
Representatives for Allen, who has long maintained his innocence, did not immediately return requests for comment.
Ms Farrow wrote: "That he got away with what he did to me haunted me as I grew up. I was stricken with guilt that I had allowed him to be near other little girls."
In the letter, Ms Farrow claims that in 1992 at the family's Connecticut home, Allen led her to a "dim, closet-like attic" and "then he sexually assaulted me". She did not give specifics of Allen's actions but described other abusive behaviour.
She added: "For as long as I could remember, my father had been doing things to me that I didn't like. These things happened so often, so routinely, so skilfully hidden from a mother that would have protected me had she known, that I thought it was normal."
The 1992 allegation came shortly after Allen, then in his mid-50s, became involved with Mia Farrow's adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn. Allen was not the adoptive father of Ms Previn, who was about 19 at the time. The two married in 1997 and have two adopted daughters.
Though many fans never forgave Allen for his romance with Ms Previn, the director's career was largely uninterrupted. He has continued to release a new film almost every year, with his latest, Blue Jasmine, earning three Academy Award nominations.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article