Moses Farrow, the adopted son of Woody Allen and Mia Farrow, published a 4500-word piece Wednesday in defense of his father against the allegation the Oscar-winner molested his adopted-daughter Dylan 26-years-ago. The piece also accuses Mia of the physical and mental abuse of her children, as well as inventing the molestation charge.
First a little background…
On August 4, 1992, Woody Allen was visiting his children: 14-year-old Moses, four-year-old Satchel (who now goes by Ronan, as in “Ronan Farrow Pulitzer Prize winner”), and sister Dylan, who was just barely seven. According to Moses (and others), although Mia was out shopping at the time, the house was filled with three other kids and three adults.
By this time, things were already bad. In January of that same year, after a 13-year relationship with Allen, Mia discovered nude photos of her adopted 21-year-old daughter Soon-Yi in Allen’s apartment. The two of them had been having an affair for at least a year. The ensuing break up was understandably bitter. The custody battle even more so.
August 4 would be the last time Allen would ever see Dylan and Ronan.
Just a few days later, Allen would be accused of sexually molesting Dylan during that visit. .
As Breitbart News reported previously, the molestation allegation against Allen was exhaustively investigated in New York and in Connecticut. Not only was there not enough evidence to convict Allen, there was not even enough evidence to file any charges or bring the case to trial. In fact, some of the expert investigators declared Allen innocent; flat-out said no molestation occurred and that Dylan had been coached to make a false accusation.
What’s more, Allen passed a polygraph test, and has not only lived in the public eye for 60 years without ever being accused of harming another child (molesters are notorious recidivists), he has never been accused of any kind of improper behavior towards anyone ever.
Before I go any further, let me make my own biases clear… Regardless of how bad things may have been between Mia and Allen, his betrayal of her and the family with Soon-Yi was a monstrous act.
However, Allen was not Soon-Yi’s father or stepfather, or even a father figure. Allen did not live with Mia and the kids. Allen did not even stay overnight. Moses describes what happened this way:
In truth, Woody and Soon-Yi rarely even spoke during her childhood. It was my mother who first suggested, when Soon-Yi was 20, that Woody reach out and spend time with her. He agreed and started taking her to Knicks games. That’s how their romance started. Yes, it was unorthodox, uncomfortable, disruptive to our family and it hurt my mother terribly. But the relationship itself was not nearly as devastating to our family as my mother’s insistence on making this betrayal the center of all our lives from then on.
Nevertheless, Allen’s behavior was appalling.
But this behavior was not illegal. Moreover, he and Soon-Yi have been married since 1997 and have two children of their own, and, frankly, I do not believe Allen molested Dylan.
Yes, as an adult, and as recently as Wednesday, Dylan stands by her molestation claim. But I do not believe it happened, and I do not know why or if she believes it. That is not for me or for anyone else to figure out. What I do know is that based on the evidence (or lack of), two exhaustive criminal investigations, and Allen’s otherwise impeccable behavior in his personal life, at the very least, Allen deserves and should receive the benefit of the doubt.
Unfortunately, that has not happened.
Because of the #MeToo movement — a legitimately good cause that has exposed countless left-wing men as abusers who have been enabled for decades within the left-wing institutions of Hollywood and the news media — in some cases there has been a rush to judgment, an ignoring of facts, and a bandwagon effect that veers uncomfortably close to mob justice.
And because of that, there has been a disgusting movement afoot to blacklist Allen out of the film business. A number of name actors have either said they will never work with Allen, or regret that they have. To their credit, a handful of others, like Scarlett Johansson, Alec Baldwin, and Cate Blanchett, have stood by the evidence and with Allen.
This is where things stood Wednesday morning, before Moses published his own testimony. Moses has spoken out in support of this father in the past, but this is the first time he has told his full story, which is his attempt to fully exonerate Allen while condemning Mia, not only as a manipulative abuser of her own children (including Moses) and a vindictive liar who coached Dylan into making a false allegation, but as a walking nightmare of parental dysfunction whose abusive behavior may have, according to Moses, in some way contributed to the untimely death of two of her children.
He closes his essay with this:
To those who have become convinced of my father’s guilt, I ask you to consider this: In this time of #MeToo, when so many movie heavyweights have faced dozens of accusations, my father has been accused of wrongdoing only once, by an enraged ex-partner during contentious custody negotiations. During almost 60 years in the public eye, not one other person has come forward to accuse him of even behaving badly on a date, or acting inappropriately in any professional situation, let alone molesting a child. As a trained professional, I know that child molestation is a compulsive sickness and deviation that demands repetition. 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.
To the actors who have worked with my father and have voiced regret for doing so: You have rushed to join the chorus of condemnation based on a discredited accusation for fear of not being on the “right” side of a major social movement. But rather than accept the hysteria of Twitter mobs, mindlessly repeating a story examined and discredited 25 years ago, please consider what I have to say. After all, I was there – in the house, in the room – and I know both my father and mother and what each is capable of a whole lot better than you.
What we have here are two vastly different stories from two different children — Moses and Dylan — and no way to divine what is and what is not true. But it is not up to us to divine the impossible.
Each of us sits as jurors in the courtroom of public opinion and that is a responsibility we should take seriously. And with conflicting testimony and a lack of concrete evidence to back up the allegations leveled against both Allen and Mia, I refuse to rule in favor of the either being socially ostracized and blacklisted.
All I know for certain is that the whole thing is heartbreaking.
**UPDATE**
Ronan Farrow tweeted a statement on Thursday adding his comments to what he called “the repeated campaign to discredit my sister, often by attacking our mother.”
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
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