Woody Allen responds to abuse claims in his own 'New York Times' essay

Following Dylan Farrow’s New York Times essay claiming abuse at the hands of her adoptive father Woody Allen, the director has responded with a Times essay of his own.

“Twenty-one years ago, when I first heard Mia Farrow had accused me of child molestation, I found the idea so ludicrous I didn’t give it a second thought,” Allen begins his first-person account. “We were involved in a terribly acrimonious breakup, with great enmity between us and a custody battle slowly gathering energy. The self-serving transparency of her malevolence seemed so obvious I didn’t even hire a lawyer to defend myself.”

Allen goes on to state the facts of the case and points out that he was never charged with a crime. “I naïvely thought the accusation would be dismissed out of hand because of course, I hadn’t molested Dylan and any rational person would see the ploy for what it was. Common sense would prevail. After all, I was a 56-year-old man who had never before (or after) been accused of child molestation. I had been going out with Mia for 12 years and never in that time did she ever suggest to me anything resembling misconduct.”

Also addressed in the essay is Mia Farrow’s claim that her son, Ronan, might not be Allen’s biological child, but rather the son of her first husband, Frank Sinatra. “Is he my son or, as Mia suggests, Frank Sinatra’s?” Allen writes. “Granted, he looks a lot like Frank with the blue eyes and facial features, but if so what does this say? That all during the custody hearing Mia lied under oath and falsely represented Ronan as our son?”

After saying that he and his wife (and Dylan’s adoptive sister) Soon-Yi hope to one day have a relationship with Dylan, as they do with her brother Moses Farrow, Allen concludes the essay by promising this is the last time he will address the matter. “(This piece will be my final word on this entire matter and no one will be responding on my behalf to any further comments on it by any party. Enough people have been hurt.)”