Dylan Farrow, whose brother Ronan helped expose predatory men in Hollywood, is asking why the man she accuses of sexual assault, Woody Allen, has largely been left out of the conversation.
In an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times published on Thursday, Farrow calls out actresses Blake Lively, Kate Winslet and Greta Gerwig for continuing to support Allen, her adoptive father.
Allen, an acclaimed filmmaker, has long denied the allegation, which Farrow first made publicly in 2014, and has continued to make movies, recently securing a multimillion-dollar deal with Amazon for his future projects. Although she is the only person to accuse Allen of sexual assault, Farrow draws comparisons with men like producer Harvey Weinstein, who’ve been banished from the industry following allegations of sexual misconduct.
“It is a testament to Allen’s public relations team and his lawyers that few know these simple facts,” Farrow wrote. “It also speaks to the forces that have historically protected men like Allen: the money and power deployed to make the simple complicated, to massage the story.”
She added: “In this deliberately created fog, A-list actors agree to appear in Allen’s films and journalists tend to avoid the subject.”
Winslet has come under fire during her press tour for “Wonder Wheel,” Allen’s latest film. In a series of increasingly troubling interviews, she praised the director’s ability to “understand the female characters he creates” and defended working with him despite the allegations.
Dylan Farrow ― one of three children adopted by Allen and actress Mia Farrow ― said Allen sexually assaulted her when she was 7 years old. The claim prompted multiple investigations, which determined no abuse had occurred.
Farrow, however, disputes the conclusions in her op-ed, noting a judge’s decision to revoke Allen’s custody of her during a contentious legal battle in 1993.
“In the final legal disposition of the matter, a judge denied him custody of me, writing that ‘measures must be taken to protect’ me and that there was ‘no credible evidence’ that my mother, Mia Farrow, coached me in any way,” Farrow wrote. “A prosecutor took the unusual step of announcing that he had probable cause to charge Allen but declined in order to spare me, a ‘child victim,’ from an exhausting trial.”
In a piece for The New York Times in 2014, Allen emphatically denied Farrow’s version of events, which he says were influenced by his “acrimonious” breakup with Mia Farrow. He cited an expert report to police investigating the claim that declared: “It is our expert opinion that Dylan was not sexually abused by Mr. Allen.”
A representative for Allen said in a statement to HuffPost, in response to the op-ed, that Dylan Farrow’s claims were false.
“Dylan Farrow’s allegations against Woody Allen, which she first made 25 years ago, have been thoroughly examined by law enforcement officials and child welfare investigators,” the statement read. “The investigators concluded unambiguously that Dylan Farrow was not sexually abused. No charges were ever filed, and the reason is simple: because Woody Allen is innocent.”
Despite Allen’s continued success, Farrow said she’s heartened that actresses like Ellen Page and Jessica Chastain have come forward to either apologize for working with Allen or to pledge never to do so in the future.
She concluded her op-ed by pointing the finger at those she says are complicit in protecting Allen.
“It isn’t just power that allows men accused of sexual abuse to keep their careers and their secrets,” she wrote. “It is also our collective choice to see simple situations as complicated and obvious conclusions as a matter of ‘who can say’? The system worked for Harvey Weinstein for decades. It works for Woody Allen still.”
Read Farrow’s full op-ed in the Los Angeles Times.
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