Dylan Farrow describes being ‘abused by Woody Allen’ in new HBO documentary

Dylan Farrow is heard describing how her adopted father Woody Allen allegedly ‘touched her private parts’, in a never-before-seen 1992 home video featured in an new HBO documentary about the embattled filmmaker.    

In the video shot by adoptive mother Mia Farrow as proof of the incident, seven-year-old Dylan claims the Oscar-winning director told her: ‘Do not move, I have to do this,’ as he touched her in the attic of the family’s country home. 

‘I didn’t want him to do it, mama,’ she’s heard telling her mother. ‘I didn’t like it’. 

The four-part documentary series, Allen v. Farrow, premieres Sunday on HBO and will feature recordings that Mia secretly made of her phone conversations with Allen, including one in which she tells him Dylan ‘is not alright’, after the alleged incident. 

The film is set to reignite one of the most bitter and public celebrity family scandals that has raged for the past 30 years. 

Dylan, now 35, who has publicly spoken out against her adoptive father in the past, recounts early incidents of abuse (pictured in a home video with brother Ronan Farrow and their father) 

Mia, 76, who split from Allen in 1992, accused the Oscar-winning director of molesting their adoptive daughter as a child, which he has strongly denied 

Following her split from Allen, 85, in 1992, Mia, 76, who has 14 children, publicly accused the director of sexually assaulting Dylan as a child. 

Mia’s split from Allen and her sexual abuse charges against him, came after she discovered he was having an affair with her daughter, Soon-Yi Previn, whom she adopted with ex-husband Andre Previn in 1977.  

Allen has always strongly maintained his innocence, claiming that Dylan fabricated the allegations of abuse or that she had been coached by Mia who was jealous of his relationship with Soon-Yi Previn.

Mia found out about Allen and Soon-Yi in 1992 when she found explicit photos of her in his apartment.

Mia and Allen had been together since 1979, when his career had taken off thanks to hit films Annie Hall and Manhattan, and she was A-list actress after her breakout role in Rosemary’s Baby.

In 1992 that all changed when Allen, then 55, and Soon-Yi, then 21, were caught having an affair, which the documentary claims had been going on since she was in high school.

Soon-Yi would later marry Allen and remains with him to this day despite the 34-year age gap.

Allegations against Allen emerged after Farrow discovered he was having an affair with her adoptive daughter Soon-Yi (pictured) which the documentary claims had been going on since she was in high school. The two remain together to this day

Soon-Yi Previn (pictured as a baby) whom Farrow adopted with ex-husband Andre Previn (pictured) in 1977, was 21 and Allen was 55, at the time the affair came to light

But that was not the only betrayal that Mia and Dylan allege in the film.

Dylan describes how from the birth of her brother Ronan Farrow, the journalist whose 2017 bombshell report about Harvey Weinstein kickstarted the MeToo movement, Allen began to take her away from her mother even when she wanted to stay.

Dylan says that Allen was ‘very slowly instilling the idea in my head she [Mia] was more (Ronan’s) parent, he was more my parent, I was daddy’s girl’.

Dylan says that she ‘worshiped’ Allen and his humor made her ‘feel so special’.

She says in the film that Allen was like a ‘magnet’ to her and showered her with ‘intense affection all the time’. 

‘I was always in his clutches. He was always hunting me,’ Dylan says. 

Family members describe how Dylan began locking herself in the bathroom whenever Allen would come over or pretended to be a dead animal so she couldn’t talk.

Recounting the early incidents of abuse, Dylan says she has ‘very vivid snapshots, different places, mostly a window with a feeling attached’. 

‘I remember sitting on the edge of his bed,’ she says.  ‘The light in the room, the satin sheets. 

‘There were clarinet reeds. I have memories of getting into bed with him. He was in his underwear, I’m in my underwear cuddling. I remember his breath on me. He would just wrap his body around me, very intimately’. 

Mia says: ‘I would suddenly walk in and there she would be in his bed with him in his underwear. Sometimes he would also kneel in front of her or sit next to her and put his face in her lap which I caught a couple of times and I didn’t think that was right’.

Mia Farrow, recorded Dylan on camera speaking of the two incidents, one on the couch and a second in the attic, of when Allen allegedly touched her 

Dylan, pictured as a baby, says that she ‘worshiped’ Allen and his humor made her ‘feel so special’ when she was a child 

Tisa Farrow, Mia’s sister, recounts a chilling instance when Allen allegedly was putting sunscreen on Dylan’s back when his hand went down between her buttocks and ‘kind of lingered’.

‘(His hand) suggestively went between her buttock cheeks with his finger and then came back. Mia saw it too and snatched the sunscreen away,’ she says. 

Allen also taught Dylan to suck his thumb and when asked about it by a family friend he claimed it ‘calms her down’.

Mia found the pictures of Soon-Yi in January 1992, but she couldn’t cut Allen out of her life completely because she was conflicted and loved him and because he had adopted her and her brother Moses, she says in the film. 

But things took a turn in August that year at her home in Connecticut.

Allen arrived one day while Mia was out and went straight to Dylan. Suddenly everyone realized that Allen and Dylan were missing and they were not found for 20 minutes.

The next day, family friend Casey Pascal told Mia that a babysitter in the house said she saw Dylan sitting on the couch with Allen ‘kneeling on the floor with his head buried in her lap’. 

‘She said she felt she’d walked in on a very adult situation and realized it was a child and she was horrified to the core. She said Dylan was staring off into space and Woody’s face was in her lap,’ Pascal said. 

‘I remembered she (Dylan) had not had any underpants on (afterwards). She was sitting next to me. I said to her: “Did this happen, did daddy have his face in your lap yesterday?” She said yes,’ Mia added. 

The documentary is set to reignite one of the most bitter and public celebrity family scandals that has raged on for the past 30 years. Pictured: Moses Farrow with siblings Dylan and Ronan

Farrow’s adopted son Moses (pictured) said in an interview with People magazine that Mia had been abusive to him growing up, which she denied. He has also defended his father and denied the abuse allegations against him

After the birth of her brother Ronan Farrow (right) Dylan claimed Allen was ‘very slowly instilling the idea in my head she [Mia] was more [Ronan’s] parent, he was more my parent, I was daddy’s girl’

Mia got her video camera out and recorded Dylan as she asked her about what happened.

There appear to have been two incidents, one on the couch and a second in the attic.

While talking about the first, Dylan says: ‘He touched (my) privates and then he was breathing on my leg. And then, this (where I mean) he squeezed me too hard that I couldn’t breathe’.

Mia asked: ‘What do you mean he touched your privates? Where did he touch you?

Dylan, who was lying on her front, motions toward her behind.

In another video, Dylan addresses what happened when Allen took her to the attic. 

‘He said: “What about some father-daughter time”. And then I said: “Well, OK”. We went into your (Mia’s) room and we went into the attic. Then he started telling me weird things. Then he went behind me and touched my privates,’ Dylan said. 

Mia asked: ‘Which privates did he touch?’

Dylan, who is sitting down on a bed, points to her private parts and says: ‘This part’.

Mia asks: ‘He touched your front part’ and Dylan says: ‘yeah’

In another part of the video Mia asks: ‘Do you wanna tell me what things daddy said in the attic when you were in the attic?

Dylan replies: ‘Do not move, I have to do this.’ But I wiggled my bum to see what he was doing. He said: ‘Don’t move I have to do this. If you stay still we can go to Paris’.

Dylan added that Allen told her: ‘Because this way you could be in my movie, if I do this’. I didn’t want him to do it, mama. I didn’t like it….I don’t want to talk about it’.

Mia found explicit photos of Soon-Yi at Allen’s apartment in January 1992, but she couldn’t cut him out of her life completely because she was conflicted and loved him, she says in the film

Soon-Yi broke her decades-long silence in an interview with New York Magazine, to brand Mia a ‘nasty, mean person’ and claimed she abused her when she was a child.

It took years before Hollywood finally began to pay attention and Allen was effectively blacklisted

The documentary includes phone calls between Allen and Mia that she secretly taped, including conversations in the aftermath of the incident.

In one of them Mia says: ‘She’s not alright, Woody. She walks around the house holding her vagina. She sleeps with me. She’s scared of you and you’ve hurt her’.

Mia sobs as she says: ‘I feel guilty I wasn’t there to protect her.

‘She said mommy you didn’t help. Daddy shouldn’t have done that. He shouldn’t have hurt me like that. If you heard her you would weep inside and you would just want to be dead because I don’t know how you can live with what you did’.

After the incident Mia took Dylan to a pediatrician to have it on record what Allen had allegedly done and after the appointment the doctor informed the police.

The Connecticut State Police and child welfare services in New York began investigations but Allen was not prosecuted.

In the Connecticut case, a psychological report prepared by the Yale New Haven Hospital child sexual abuse clinic – which the documentary argues was deeply flawed – said that Dylan was not a reliable witness.

Allen refused to take a polygraph with a police officer and offered up his own, privately done one instead.

Prosecutors found there was probable cause to issue an arrest warrant for 1st and 4th degree sexual assault of a minor

But they decided not to move forward with the case because of Dylan’s mentality fragility and her young age.

In the New York case, the lead investigator was fired for supposedly not following orders then given his job back after he took the authorities to court.

Documents unearthed by the documentary show that child welfare officials wrote in a report that ‘with high profile cases it is customary for the “big wigs” to take over and we do nothing’.

Allen sued Mia for custody of Dylan and her adopted son Moses – he had become the adopted father to both of them – but after a high profile case a judge ruled against him.

The story largely stayed out of the headlines until 2014 when Ronan fired off an angry tweet to the Golden Globes where his father was being venerated.

It said: ‘Missed the Woody Allen tribute – did they put the part where a woman publicly confirmed he molested her at age 7 before or after Annie Hall?’

For Dylan it was a turning point and she wrote an open letter to The New York Times and a piece for Vanity Fair making the allegations about her father anew.

But her comments sparked a backlash from Moses who said in an interview with People magazine that Mia had been abusive to him growing up, allegations she strongly denies.

In the interview Moses said: ‘My mother drummed it into me to hate my father for tearing apart the family and sexually molesting my sister. And I hated him for her for years. I see now that this was a vengeful way to pay him back for falling in love with Soon-Yi’.

It took years before Hollywood finally began to pay attention and Allen was effectively blacklisted and no producers picked up his 2019 romantic comedy, A Rainy Day in New York, though it made $22million abroad.

As Allen was being shunned, Soon-Yi broke her decades-long silence to brand Mia a ‘nasty, mean person’ and claimed she abused her when she was a child.

Speaking to New York magazine, she alleged that Mia used to slap her across the face, spank her with a hairbrush and threatened to send her to a mental asylum.

But Soon-Yi also admitted that marrying Allen was a ‘huge betrayal and there was ‘no justification’ for it.

Painting Allen as the real victim, she said: ‘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’.

Allen wrote extensively about Mia in his recent memoir ‘Apropos of Nothing’, which was dropped from publishers Hachette after a staff walkout.

In the book he called her disturbed and claims she ‘psychologically and corporally’ abused her children into ‘submissive obedience’.

In a queasy passage, Allen says that despite being old enough to be Previn’s father, when they first met she was ‘ready to ripen superbly if only someone would show her some love’.

He says that in the early days of their relationship ‘lust reigned supreme and we couldn’t keep our hands off each other’.

Addressing the allegations about Dylan, he wrote: ‘I never laid a finger on Dylan, never did anything to her that could be even misconstrued as abusing her; it was a total fabrication from start to finish, every subatomic particle of it’.

Allen v Farrow premieres on Sunday Feb 21st at 9pm on HBO with new episodes airing subsequent Sundays at the same time