Soon-Yi Defends Woody Allen Against Child Sex Abuse Accusations
Image by getty images
(JTA)– Soon-Yi Previn, the wife of filmmaker Woody Allen, defended her husband of 25 years against charges that he sexually abused his adopted daughter when she was 7.
“What’s happened to Woody is so upsetting, so unjust,” Previn, 47, told New York magazine in an interview published in the Sept. 17 issue and posted on the magazine’s Vulture website late last week. “[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 is the adopted daughter of Mia Farrow and her ex-husband Andre Previn. She met Allen when the filmmaker was Farrow’s boyfriend. Allen and Farrow have a biological son and also adopted two children.
In May, in the wake of accusations by dozens of women against movie producer Harvey Weinstein and the launch of the #MeToo movement, Allen’s adopted daughter Dylan Farrow revived her accusation that the acclaimed director had molested her in Farrow’s home when she was 7 years old in 1992. Allen has denied that he ever molested his adopted daughter, and an investigation in 1993 determined that Dylan Farrow was coached to make the accusation, which she denies.
The New York article was written by Daphne Merkin, who said in the piece that she has been friends with Allen for more than 40 years. The revelation has led to accusations of bad journalism policies against the magazine.
These are the first comments that Previn has made on her relationship with Allen and the accusations against him in their years together.
Allen and Previn began their relationship in 1991, when Allen still had some kind of relationship with Farrow, and when Previn was a freshman in college studying art. They had planned to keep their relationship a secret and guessed that it would end quickly. Upon discovering the relationship, Farrow called it a virtual case of incest because of the complicated relationship between Allen and the women.
Previn said that Farrow was abusive and considered her to be retarded, but she said that she and Allen did not start a relationship to punish Farrow.
“I wasn’t the one who went after Woody — where would I get the nerve? He pursued me,” she told Merkin. “That’s why the relationship has worked: I felt valued. It’s quite flattering for me. He’s usually a meek person, and he took a big leap.”
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
