Soon-Yi Previn Broke Her Silence Over Woody Allen To Accuse Mia Farrow Of Abuse

One person who has never spoken up about the controversy involving Woody Allen, Dylan Farrow, and Mia Farrow is Soon-Yi Previn. In a New York Magazine op-ed published Sunday on their site Vulture, Previn broke her silence, sided with her husband, and accused the woman who raised her of years of abuse.

“I was never interested in writing a Mommie Dearest, getting even with Mia — none of that,” Previn told Vulture. “But what’s happened to Woody is so upsetting, so unjust. [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 was adopted by Mia and her then-husband André Previn in 1978. Mia dated Allen from 1980 through 1992, but according to Soon-Yi, Allen never raised her. To her, André was already a father figure. Around 1991, when she was 21, Soon-Yi and Allen began a secret relationship. Their union was a scandal, no less because Mia was left betrayed and traumatized. The two married in 1997.

Mia first accused Allen of sexual assault of Dylan, then 7, in 1992. There were multiple investigations, none of which found credible proof of mistreatment. The controversy faded away, but resurfaced for the first time in 2014, when Mia and their son Ronan Farrow began publicly accusing Allen of sexual misconduct.

Since then, there have been two sides locked in battle. Mia, Ronan, and Dylan keep saying the accusations are legitimate. Meanwhile Allen, Allen’s sister Letty Aronson, and Moses Farrow, another of Mia’s adopted children, who has also accused her of abuse, say they’ve been fabricated. Allen and other family members have accused Mia of manipulating Dylan and Ronan, allegedly making them believe in a lie.

In the Vulture piece, Soon-Yi, now 47, paints a portrait of Mia that is similar to the one described by Moses. She says Mia “wasn’t maternal” to her from the start. The first time Mia tried to give Soon-Yi a bath, rather than ease her into the tub, she “just kind of threw me in.” When Mia tried to teach her the alphabet, she apparently grew frustrated with Soon-Yi and threw the alphabet blocks at her. There was lots of slapping and name-calling; and she also claims Farrow would often hold her upside down.

Asked if she has any positive memories of Mia, Previn replied: “It seems hard to imagine, but I really can’t come up with one.”

Since the #MeToo movement began last autumn, Dylan and others have kept the accusations alive. Many actors who’ve been in Allen’s films, including Mira Sorvino, Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Hall, and Greta Gerwig, have said they regret acting for him; Hall and Chalamet even donated their salaries for his film A Rainy Day in New York, which may never even be released, to charity. Others, like longtime friend, ex, and co-star Diane Keaton, have stood by Allen.

Dylan has already commented on the Vulture piece, saying such accusations are “offensive.” She took to Twitter to release a lengthy statement in response to the Previn story.

Ronan Farrow — now an esteemed journalist who has broken stories about Harvey Weinstein, Les Moonves, and other alleged perpetrators of sexual harassment and assault — has also weighed in to criticize the piece.

https://twitter.com/RonanFarrow/status/1041504876621000704

A New York Magazine representative released a statement on the piece to The Hollywood Reporter: “Soon-Yi Previn is telling her story for the first time, and we hope people will withhold judgment until they have read the feature. … We reached out to both Mia and Dylan Farrow for comment; Dylan chose to speak through her representative. The story is transparent about being told from Soon-Yi’s point of view.”

(Via Vulture and The Hollywood Reporter)