In a bombshell profile for New York Magazine, Soon-Yi Previn broke years of silence, dismissing accusations of sexual abuse by husband Woody Allen and detailing alleged abuse by her adoptive mother Mia Farrow.
The profile has already been slammed as biased and inaccurate by two of Mia’s other children, Dylan and Ronan Farrow. Dylan, the adoptive daughter of Allen and Farrow, has accused Allen of molesting her as a child. Ronan, Mia’s biological son, helped launch the anti-sexual harassment movement known as #MeToo with his reporting on Harvey Weinstein at the New Yorker.
During the interview, which was published on Vulture on Sunday, Previn dismisses claims that Allen molested Dylan, whom Previn claimed is being “paraded” around as a victim by her adoptive mother.
“What’s happened to Woody is so upsetting, so unjust,” she told the magazine. “[Mia] has taken advantage of the #MeToo movement and paraded Dylan as a victim. And a whole new generation is hearing about it when they shouldn’t.”
Previn, 47, claims it was Mia who was abusive toward her growing up, not Allen.
The two were like “oil and water,” she said. “Mia wasn’t maternal to me from the get-go. … I was never interested in writing a ‘Mommie Dearest,’ getting even with Mia — none of that.”
“She tried to teach me the alphabet with those wooden blocks,” she recounted. “If I didn’t get them right, sometimes she’d throw them at me or down on the floor. Who can learn under that pressure?”
Previn described the first bath she was given by Mia as traumatic. “I’d never taken a bath by myself, because in the orphanage it was a big tub and we all got in it. Here, it was for a single person, and I was scared to get in the water by myself. So instead of doing what you would do with an infant — you know, maybe get into the water, put some toys in, put your arm in to show that you’re fine, it’s not dangerous — she just kind of threw me in,” said Previn.
“I really can’t come up with one,” she adds, when “asked repeatedly if she has any positive recollections of her years with Mia.”
Just hours after the profile’s publication, Dylan posted a strong statement via Twitter defending her mother and blasting the magazine for pushing falsehoods.
“Woody Allen molested me when I was seven years old, part of a documented pattern of inappropriate, abusive touching that led a judge to say there was no evidence I was coached and that it was unsafe for me to be in Woody Allen’s presence,” Dylan first clarified.
“When New York Magazine contacted me, they described multiple obvious falsehoods. The author even suggested that my mother bribed me to lie with a doll that was not manufactured until years later. Thanks to my mother, I grew up in a wonderful home, filled with love, that she created,” she wrote. “I have a message for the media and allies of Woody Allen: No one is ‘parading me around as a victim’ — I continue to be an adult woman making a credible allegation unchanged for two decades, backed up by evidence.”
The author of the profile, Daphne Merkin, admits within the piece that she’s “been friends with Allen for over four decades.”
“The author has written about her friendship and infatuation with Woody Allen,” noted Dylan. “The idea of letting a friend of an alleged predator write a one-sided piece attacking the credibility of his victim is disgusting.”
Ronan, a highly respected journalist, called the piece a “hit job” and also defended his mother.
“As a brother and a son, I’m angry that New York Magazine would participate in this kind of a hit job, written by a longtime admirer and friend of Woody Allen’s,” he posted to Twitter. “As a journalist, I’m shocked by the lack of care for the facts, the refusal to include eyewitness testimony that would contradict falsehoods in this piece, and the failure to print my sister’s responses.”
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