‘Allen v. Farrow’ Revelations: Everything We Learned About the Case Against Woody Allen

Credit: Courtesy of HBO

'Allen v. Farrow' Revelations: Everything We Learned About the Case Against Woody Allen

A complicated story to tell. HBO's new four-part docuseries, Allen v. Farrow, dives deeper into the 1992 scandal when acclaimed director Woody Allen was accused of sexually abusing then 7-year-old Dylan Farrow. Allen, 85, who has consistently denied all allegations of sexual abuse, was dating actress Mia Farrow at the time she adopted Dylan in 1985. In 1991, he officially became the adoptive father of Dylan. The documentary, which kicked off on Sunday, February 21, features interviews with Mia, 76, Dylan, 35, and others who claim they witnessed inappropriate behavior on Allen's part. The writer and his partner, Soon-Yi Previn, whom Mia adopted with her ex-husband André Previn, spoke out following the first episode. "These documentarians had no interest in the truth. Instead, they spent years surreptitiously collaborating with the Farrows and their enablers to put together a hatchet job riddled with falsehoods," the pair's team said in a statement. "Woody and Soon-Yi were approached less than two months ago and given only a matter of days 'to respond.' Of course, they declined to do so. As has been known for decades, these allegations are categorically false." Their rep continued, "Multiple agencies investigated them at the time and found that, whatever Dylan Farrow may have been led to believe, absolutely no abuse had ever taken place. It is sadly unsurprising that the network to air this is HBO – which has a standing production deal and business relationship with Ronan Farrow. While this shoddy hit piece may gain attention, it does not change the facts." [jwplayer EyCqij6d] The filmmakers behind the documentary obtained access to case files that had been stored since the '90s, and provide never-before-seen home videos that Mia shot of Dylan sharing the stories of her alleged abuse. Allen did not participate in the series. "I haven't spoken about him, probably in decades. That's the greatest regret of my life — that I wasn't receptive enough. it's my fault. I brought this guy into our family. There's nothing I can do to take that away," the Guns at Batasi star said. "I get why people can't believe it because who on earth could believe that about Woody Allen? I couldn't believe it." Scroll through the gallery below for more revelations. [podcast_block]

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The Soon-Yi Timeline

While Allen recalls in his memoir that he first kissed Soon-Yi when she came to visit during her freshman year of college — Mia found the photos seven months after Soon-Yi graduated high school — the doorman and building manager testified in court, claiming they saw her visit him during her senior year of high school. “She would be in her school uniform at lunch," Mia claims. "They would change the bed after she left. They had told me about the condoms in the wastebasket and the sheets that needed changing.”

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Mia Never Blamed Soon-Yi

After finding the photos, Mia once discovered Soon-Yi talking to Allen on the phone and slapped her in the face. She quickly apologized and the two cried together. "I loved her so much and I didn’t ever blame her. She was just a little kid when he came into the family. She was just a little girl," Mia says. "We were family and he was in my home as my partner and as such, he had responsibilities, you know? You don’t get to have sex with my children. That wasn’t part of the deal.”

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Allen Made Dylan Call Him Daddy

After Dylan playfully called Allen by his name, he allegedly told her, “Call me Daddy, do not call me Woody." She explains that she couldn't resist calling him Woody again and when she did, he allegedly shoved her face into a plate of hot spaghetti.

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What Happened in the Attic?

Family friend Casey Pascal and Mia went shopping one summer day, leaving their children with two babysitters. Allen came over while they were gone and upon returning home, Mia claims she realized Dylan had on a dress but no underwear.

The next day, Pascal called Mia to repeat what the babysitter told her. "Alison [the babysitter] said that she saw Dylan sitting on the couch with Woody kneeling on the floor with his head buried in her lap,” Pascal recalls in the doc. "And she said that she felt that she had walked in on a very adult situation, and she realized it was a child, that it was a child she was seeing and she was horrified to the core. She said Dylan was staring off into space, and Woody’s face was in her lap."

Since their therapist was out of town, Mia asked Dylan if that was true. When she said yes, Mia filmed her then-7-year-old daughter detailing what allegedly happened with Woody. "He touched my privates, and then he was breathing on my leg," the young Dylan claims in the home video dated August 5, 1992. "And then, this is where I mean, he squeezed me too hard that I couldn’t breathe.”

In a present-day interview, Dylan details more of the alleged incident. “We were in the TV room, and he reached behind me and touched my butt. And then he told me to come up to the attic with him,” she says. “I remember laying there on my stomach, and my back was to him, so I couldn't see what was going on. I felt trapped. He was saying things like, ‘We’re gonna go to Paris together. You're gonna be in all my movies.’ Then, he sexually assaulted me. I remember just focusing on my brother's train set. And then, he just stopped. He was done, and we just went downstairs.”

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He Wanted a Blonde Daughter

While Allen didn't have any interest in being a father, he allegedly told Mia that he would want a "little blonde girl" instead of a child from Asia, as Mia's other adopted children were. So, she thought if she could find the perfect blonde daughter, "maybe he'd love her." Allen was immediately drawn to Dylan, born in July 1985. "I found myself more and more holding her, playing with her and completely falling in love with her, delighted to be father," Allen wrote in his 2020 autobiography, Apropos of Nothing.

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Dylan Farrow's Fear of Woody Allen

As Dylan grew up, she became more aware of Allen's constant presence, which alarmed friends of the family because whenever they were there with their own children, he was allegedly glued to her side. Dylan's brother, Ronan Farrow, recalls in the doc that they'd play together when Allen wasn't home, but when he was around, he'd be attached to her. “She was frightened of this stuff,” Ronan claims in the doc. “She would talk to me at the time: 'I don’t want to be with Daddy. Can we keep playing?'" Friends also claimed that Dylan started hiding in the bathroom, so she didn't have to be with him.

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Seeing the Signs

"In time, what it became, was there was nobody but the two of them," Mia says. "He didn't want to see the other kids, he wanted to see her. It was so one track." The Omen star began seeing red flags, explaining that she'd sometimes see her partner allegedly kneeling in front of Dylan and lying his head in her lap. "I didn't think that was right," she says. "I started feeling more like the policeman. Am I going to come in and see something that shouldn’t be happening?"

Mia's sister Tisa Farrow recalled a moment Allen was allegedly putting sunscreen on Dylan at the beach and "his hand went down between her buttocks and kind of lingered there." When Mia finally said something to Allen about not being comfortable with the way he was handling Dylan, he allegedly got extremely angry. "Sometimes he would say, 'I honestly think you need help.' I began thinking, 'You must be crazy. He can't be a pedophile, he's my boyfriend, I love him,'" Mia recalls. "I wanted to believe that he was innocent, and he was just being affectionate."

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Cuddling and Thumb-Sucking

Dylan describes a memory in which she and Allen would "cuddle" in bed, with both of them only wearing underwear. "I remember his breath on me. He would just wrap his body around me very intimately,” she claims.

Dylan also recalls Allen allegedly "directing" her on "how to suck his thumb" when no one else was around. "[He was] telling me what to do with my tongue," she says. "I think that lasted a while. It felt like a long time." A friend of the family, Priscilla Gilman, also claimed that she had seen Dylan suck Allen's thumb, noting, "He said, 'Yes this helps her. It calms her down, soothes her to do this.'"

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Bringing In a Doctor

Although Mia had seen some strange actions, it wasn't until a psychologist in their building told her that she observed an "off" interaction between Allen and Dylan, that she made a change, noting that "the floodgates opened." Afterward, Allen agreed to see a psychologist, who told Mia he had an "inappropriately intense" relationship with Dylan. The therapist also shared that Allen's relationship with Dylan wasn't sexual but could be perceived that way. Instead, it was just that he didn't know how to behave with a child. Shortly after, he decided to officially adopt Dylan and Moses Farrow.

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The Polaroids

For some time, things got better, until Mia found graphic, pornographic polaroids of her daughter, Soon-Yi Previn, who was a freshman in college at the time, in Allen's apartment. When Allen later showed up at Mia's apartment, she tried to get him to leave. "First he said, 'I'm in love with Soon-Yi. I would marry her.' Then he said, 'No I just said that. It's something I thought of it in the car, I thought it would make it better if I put it that way. No, I love you,'" Mia says. "There was all of that for four hours — 'I just made a mistake, I lost control.' I didn't know what to think. I just needed him to get out."

The first part of the documentary ended with Dylan recalling the moment Mia told her about the photos. "That was the first instance that I thought, 'Oh, it's not just me,'" she says.