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In his just-published memoir “Apropos of Nothing,” Woody Allen once again denied accusations that he molested daughter Dylan Farrow in the early ’90s when she was 7 and said the accusations were part of his ex-partner Mia Farrow’s “Ahab-like quest” for revenge after he left her for Farrow’s daughter Soon-Yi Previn.
“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,” he writes in the new book, which was released Monday by Arcade Publishing after his previous publisher, Hachette, dropped it.
According to the Associated Press, which broke the news of the sudden publication, Allen recalled going to Mia Farrow’s cottage in 1992 and placing a hand in Dylan’s lap, but says, “I certainly didn’t do anything improper to her. I was in a room full of people watching TV mid-afternoon.”
Allen, who was never charged with a crime after two separate police investigations in the 1990s, calls the accusations a “total fabrication.” In the book, he also suggests the claims were borne of Farrow’s “Ahab-like quest” for revenge after she learned he had begun dating then 21-year-old Soon-Yi Previn, whom Farrow and previous husband André Previn had adopted in 1978.
Also Read: Woody Allen's Memoir Released Today by Arcade Publishing After Hachette Dropped It
According to the AP, Allen also describes Mia Farrow’s reaction to finding out about the relationship with Previn, writing about “her shock, her dismay, her rage, everything,” then calling it “the correct reaction.”
Reps for Mia Farrow and Dylan Farrow did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Still, Allen insists he would do it all over again. “Sometimes, when the going got rough and I was maligned everywhere, I was asked if I had known the outcome, do I ever wish I never took up with Soon-Yi? I always answered I’d do it again in a heartbeat,” he writes, according to the AP. The new book is dedicated to Soon-Yi Previn, whom he married in 1997 despite a three-decade age difference.
In a postscript to the book, Allen also tweaks Hachette’s decision to drop the memoir on March 6, one day after dozens of the company’s employees staged a walkout to protest the book’s acquisition. Allen’s son, Ronan Farrow, also criticized the publisher, which had released his own best-seller, “Catch and Kill,” under its Little, Brown imprint.
Allen said Hachette had previously promised to stand by its publishing plan despite his status as “a toxic pariah and menace to society” in the #MeToo era. “When actual flak did arrive they thoughtfully reassessed their position,” he wrote, and “dumped the book like it was a hunk of Xenon 135.”
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