Woody Allen’s Wife Soon-Yi Previn Defends Him, Claims Mia Farrow Abused Her

Woody Allen‘s wife, Soon-Yi Previn, defended her husband against abuse allegations in an interview with New York magazine on Sunday, September 16, and claimed that her adoptive mother, Mia Farrow, abused her.

“I was never interested in writing a Mommie Dearest, getting even with Mia — none of that,” 

Previn, 47, told the magazine about Farrow, who adopted her from Korea when she was 6 years old.

Previn was 10 when Allen began dating her mother and she made headlines in 1992 when the Rosemary’s Baby actress found nude photos that the director had taken of her. She claims she was subsequently kicked out of the house and that her adoptive father, composer Andre Previn, threatened to cut her off financially. 

She has been married to the Annie Hall director for 20 years and the couple share two adopted daughters.

Previn told New York magazine that she believes her estranged mother has manipulated the #MeToo movement to get revenge on Allen, 82, for the betrayal that saw her family ripped apart and Farrow level allegations of molestation against Allen, claiming he abused their then-7-year-old daughter, Dylan Farrow Opens a New Window. , in August 1992.

“What’s happened to Woody is so upsetting, so unjust,” 

Previn said, claiming that Farrow has

“paraded Dylan as a victim. And a whole new generation is hearing about [the allegations of abuse] when they shouldn’t.”

Dylan, her brother journalist Ronan Farrow Opens a New Window. , and Mia, 73, have all spoken out recently about Allen’s alleged abuse, which has led to actors including Mira Sorvino Opens a New Window. apologizing for taking roles in the director’s films.

Previn claims that Mia “wasn’t maternal to me from the get-go,” and that she and her adopted siblings were treated like “domestics,” looking after the younger children, cleaning and ordering groceries.

“I really can’t come up with a pleasant memory,”

She said of growing up in Mia’s home and detailed a frosty relationship with her mother that included the Hannah and Her Sisters star calling her “stupid” and “moronic” and even throwing a porcelain rabbit at her. 

“I could see from the expression on her face that she felt she had gone too far,” Previn recalled. (New York magazine states that a family spokesperson denied Previn’s memories of physical abuse, neglect or showing favoritism to one child over another.)

While Previn claims she initially hated Allen, he took her to basketball games and their relationship turned romantic after they watched an Ingmar Bergman film together in 1991. 

“We were like two magnets, very attracted to each other,” 

In January 1992, Mia found Allen’s nude photos of her adopted daughter, which he’d left sitting on his mantel, and threw Soon-Yi out. In August of that year Mia alleged Allen had molested Dylan. A team of child-abuse investigators at Yale-New Haven Hospital cleared Allen of molesting Dylan, but a month later a judge denied Allen custody of Dylan as well as visitation rights, citing Mia’s testimony that Allen was “aggressively affectionate” to his daughter. A year later he lost an appeal and a second inquiry by New York State child-welfare investigators concluded that “no credible evidence was found that [Dylan] has been abused or maltreated.”

Dylan responded to the New York magazine story on Sunday night, releasing a statement on Twitter. 

“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,” she wrote. 

“The author [Daphne Merkin] has written about her friendship and infatuation with Woody Allen. The idea of letting a friend of an alleged predator write a one-sided piece attacking the credibility of his victim is disgusting.”

“When New York Magazine contacted me, they described obvious falsehoods,” she continued. “The author even suggested that my mother bribed me to lie with a doll that was not manufactured until years later. The story still includes bizarre fabrications about my mother while failing to mention that a prosecutor found probable cause of abuse by Woody Allen and that he was in therapy for his unhealthy fixation on my body.”

“My mother never coached me, but she did stand by me, even when Woody Allen unleashed hell on her via lawyers and publicists and allies like the author of this piece. Thanks to my mother, I grew up in a wonderful home, filled with love that she created,”

Dylan concluded. “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. My only hesitation has been the way my mother is targeted as a result, as is the case here. Shame on New York Magazine.”

Ronan, who is Mia and Allen’s biological child (Allen addressed rumors in the New York magazine story that Ronan’s biological father is Mia’s ex-husband Frank Sinatra), also defended his sister and mother on Sunday night.

“I owe everything I am to Mia Farrow. She is a devoted mom who went through hell for her family, all while creating a loving home,” the investigative journalist tweeted. “But that has never stopped Woody Allen and his allies from planting stories that attack and vilify my mother to deflect from my sister’s credible allegation of abuse.”

“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,”

Ronan, who has written stories exposing alleged abuse by producer Harvey Weinstein and former CBS CEO Les Moonves, continued.

“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. Survivors of abuse deserve better.”