Biodun Iginla, BBC News

Biodun Iginla, BBC News
Showing posts with label Dylan Farrow. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dylan Farrow. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 23, 2018

Woody Allen son says father did not molest daughter



by Tamara Kachelmeier and Biodun Iginla, France24 Entertainment reporters, New York

    © GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File | Woody Allen has always denied the abuse allegations, which have never been proved

    NEW YORK  - 
    Moses Farrow, the adopted son of Mia Farrow and Woody Allen, released a lengthy personal essay Wednesday, disputing allegations that his father molested his sister and accusing his mother of abuse.
    Film director Allen has faced widening isolation over allegations that he molested his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow as a seven-year-old in 1992, leading a string of actors to distance themselves from him.
    While Moses Farrow is long known to have taken his father's side, his blog detailed his recollections of what happened and his own allegations of mistreatment at the hands of his actress mother.
    "Given the incredibly inaccurate and misleading attacks on my father, Woody Allen, I feel that I can no longer stay silent as he continues to be condemned for a crime he did not commit," he wrote.
    Aged 14 at the time, Moses said there were five children and three adults in the house at the time of the alleged incident in August 1992, "all of whom had been told for months what a monster Woody was."
    Moses disputed that his father and sister were alone and other details given by Dylan, saying there was "no electric train set" in the attic, which they never used because it was "an unfinished crawl space." Dylan alleged that Allen abused her in the attic, where he would ask her to play with an electric train set.
    Dylan's claim first surfaced in the midst of her parents' bitter split, when Allen left Mia Farrow for her adoptive daughter from a previous marriage, Soon-Yi Previn, 21 years old at the time.
    Moses drew a comparison between Allen being accused "only once, by an enraged ex-partner during contentious custody negotiations" and other heavyweights facing multiple allegations in the #MeToo era.
    "Dylan was alone with Woody in his apartment countless times over the years without a hint of impropriety, yet some would have you believe that at the age of 56, he suddenly decided to become a child molester in a house full of hostile people ordered to watch him like a hawk."
    Allen -- the director of more than 50 movies and a four-time Oscar winner also showered with awards in Europe -- has always denied the allegations, which have never been proved.
    He remains married to Soon-Yi.
    Moses claimed that going against Mia's wishes "would bring horrible repercussions," accusing her of "coaching, drilling, scripting, and rehearsing ? in essence, brainwashing" her children.
    He also accused the actress of hitting and slapping him, as well as pushing and shouting at him, and called his own public denouncement of Allen at the time as "the biggest regret of my life."


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    Thursday, January 18, 2018

    BREAKING AND UPDATE: Dylan Farrow: 'Allen's been lying so long'


    January 18, 2018  16H45 GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME
    Dylan FarrowImage copyrightGETTY IMAGES
    Image captionFarrow said she was "traumatised" by the alleged event
    by Tamara Kachelmeier and Biodun Iginla, BBC News Entertainment reporters, New York
    Dylan Farrow says she wishes Woody Allen had been charged over allegations he sexually abused her as a child.
    "He's lying and he's been lying for so long," she told CBS's This Morning, in her first TV interview about her adoptive father.
    Allen repeated his denial of the claims and issued a new statement on Thursday saying: "I never molested my daughter."
    Several actors have recently distanced themselves from Allen, as Hollywood's sexual harassment scandal continues.
    Farrow has long alleged that Allen sexually abused her when she was seven, in her mother Mia's country house.
    Allen said in his statement: "Even though the Farrow family is cynically using the opportunity afforded by the Time's Up movement to repeat this discredited allegation, that doesn't make it any more true today than it was in the past."
    Dylan and Mia FarrowImage copyrightGETTY IMAGES
    Image captionDylan said her mother Mia Farrow urged her to "tell the truth"
    In the CBS interview, Farrow said she was giving the interview because "I want to show my face and tell my story. I want to speak out, literally."
    She repeated her allegation that that on 4 August, 1992, "I was taken to a small attic crawl space in my mother's country house in Connecticut by my father".
    She said: "He instructed me to lay down on my stomach and play with my brother's toy train that was set up. And he sat behind me in the doorway and as I played with the toy train, I was sexually assaulted."

    Allen's denial

    Film director Allen was never charged, and Farrow told CBS she wishes charges had been filed following investigations at the time, because she would have "had" to take the stand.
    "I do wish that they had, even if I'm just speaking in retrospect. I was already traumatised."
    Farrow, now 32, was visibly emotional as she was shown a clip from US show 60 Minutes, dating back to 1992, in which Allen, now 82, vehemently denies the alleged molestation.
    Wood AllenImage copyrightREUTERS

    Woody Allen's response to the CBS This Morning Dylan Farrow interview

    When this claim was first made more than 25 years ago, it was thoroughly investigated by both the Child Sexual Abuse Clinic of the Yale-New Haven Hospital and New York State child welfare. They both did so for many months and independently concluded that no molestation had ever taken place.
    Instead, they found it likely a vulnerable child had been coached to tell the story by her angry mother during a contentious breakup.
    Dylan's older brother Moses has said that he witnessed their mother doing exactly that - relentlessly coaching Dylan, trying to drum into her that her father was a dangerous sexual predator. It seems to have worked - and, sadly, I'm sure Dylan truly believes what she says.
    But even though the Farrow family is cynically using the opportunity afforded by the Time's Up movement to repeat this discredited allegation, that doesn't make it any more true today than it was in the past. I never molested my daughter - as all investigations concluded a quarter of a century ago.
    Farrow told interviewer Gayle King her mother had taken her to the doctor following the alleged incident.
    When the doctor first asked her to point to where she had been touched, she pointed to her shoulder.
    She said she felt "embarrassed" but then did tell the doctor about the alleged abuse.
    Farrow also denied Allen's suggestion that her mother had "coached" her into to believing her father had molested her.
    "Every step of the way, my mother has only encouraged me to tell the truth. She has never coached me," she said.
    Natalie PortmanImage copyrightREUTERS
    Image captionDylan saw a clip of actress Natalie Portman, saying she believed her, during the interview
    Farrow also alleged that Allen "would follow me around. He was always touching me, cuddling me and if I ever said I want to go off by myself, he wouldn't let me".
    The actors who have distanced themselves from Allen include Timothee Chalamet, who announced this week he will give his salary for appearing in Allen's next film, A Rainy Day in New York, to charity.
    His co-star, Rebecca Hall, also donated her fee to charity and said she "regretted" her decision to appear in the film.
    Other stars include Natalie Portman, Greta Gerwig, Ellen Page and Mira Sorvino.
    However, Alec Baldwin, who worked with Allen on Alice, Blue Jasmine and To Rome With Love, said the "renunciation of him and his work" was "unfair and sad".
    Alec BaldwinImage copyrightREUTERS
    Image captionAlec Baldwin also said it had been a privilege to work with Allen
    In Thursday's CBS interview, Farrow spoke about actors who have starred in her father's films and continue to stand by him.
    "I'm not angry with them.
    "I hope that... especially since so many of them have been vocal advocates of this Me Too and Time's Up movement, that they can acknowledge their complicity and maybe hold themselves accountable to how they have perpetuated this culture of silence in their industry.
    When asked how she thought they were complicit, Farrow replied: "Because I have been saying this - I have been repeating my accusations unaltered for over 20 years and I have been systematically shut down, ignored or discredited or not believed.
    "If they can't acknowledge the accusations of one survivor's, how are they going to stand for all of us?"
    Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.

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