Dylan Farrow sat down with Gayle King on CBS This Morning Thursday to open up for the first time on camera about the allegations that her father Woody Allen sexually abused her when she was just seven — pain that the now 32-year-old has been shouldering for 25 years. “I want to show my face and tell my story,” she stated, on why she decided to come forward now. “I want to speak out.”
“I loved my father, I respected him, he was my hero,” Farrow explained to King. “And that obviously doesn’t take away from what he did. But it does make the betrayal and the hurt that much more intense.”
King then asked Farrow about the attic crawlspace incident at her mother Mia Farrow’s country home in Bridgewater, Connecticut in 1992, which was the catalyst for police to investigate Allen for sexual assault. Charges were never brought about as the state prosecutor didn’t think that the young girl could mentally handle a celebrity trial.
At the time, Allen and her mother were estranged as he had just began an affair with Farrow’s adopted daughter Soon-Yi. King played an interview with Allen at the time the scandal had gone public, reasoning why it wouldn’t make sense for him to molest Dylan. Farrow became visibly upset, breaking down in tears at having watched the interview.
“He’s lying, and he has been lying for so long,” she said. “And it is difficult for me to see him, and to hear his voice.”
She continued, elaborating on Allen’s treatment of her, which she says went beyond just a doting father relationship. “He would follow me around, he was always touching me, cuddling me, and if I ever I said, ‘I wanna go off by myself,’ he wouldn’t let me,” she told King. “He would often ask me to get into bed with him when he only had his underwear on, and sometimes when I only had my underwear on.”
This isn’t the first time Farrow has detailed the abuse she says she suffered at the hands of her father, but felt it was important to ressurect her allegations in light of the #MeToo movement.