Soon-Yi Previn Defends Woody Allen and Describes Mia Farrow Darkly

In her first extended comments on the fraught and tangled history between director Woody Allen and the Farrow family, Soon-Yi Previn described her mother, Mia Farrow, as a demeaning and sometimes violent figure who exploded upon learning of her relationship with Allen — a man whom Farrow had worked with and dated for years.

The remarks, made in a lengthy New York magazine article published online Sunday, represent the latest escalation in a decadeslong dispute about allegations that Allen molested his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow.

Previn staunchly defended her husband, who has come under fresh criticism, saying that “what’s happened to Woody is so upsetting, so unjust.” Allen has been at odds with Mia Farrow for years over Dylan Farrow’s accusations, and Previn said her mother had “taken advantage of the #MeToo movement and paraded Dylan as a victim.”

From the beginning, Previn and her mother were “like oil and water,” she said.

“Mia described me as ‘elegant,'” she said in the article. “It was the only positive thing she said about me.”

In the article, Previn said her mother would try to teach her the alphabet with wooden blocks — but would throw them at her if she made a mistake. She also said that Mia Farrow would tip her upside down, “holding me by my feet, to get the blood to drain to my head” because she thought it would make her smarter. Sometimes, Previn said, her mother would slap her across the face or spank her with a hairbrush. On one occasion, she told the magazine, Mia Farrow threw a porcelain rabbit at her.

“It’s hard for someone to imagine, but I really can’t come up with a pleasant memory,” she said of her years with her mother.

In the article, a representative for the family rebutted all of Previn’s memories of physical abuse or neglect.

Dylan Farrow, her brother Ronan Farrow — who has written several articles for The New Yorker about sexual misconduct in the #MeToo era — and six of their siblings responded Sunday with a joint statement saying that they stood by their mother, who had been “unfairly attacked.”

In a separate statement, Dylan Farrow reasserted that she had been molested by Allen when she was 7 years old, and said New York magazine should be ashamed of what she called a “one-sided piece.” The article was written by Daphne Merkin, who wrote that she has been friends with Allen for over four decades.

“I’m angry that New York magazine would participate in this kind of hit job,” Ronan Farrow wrote in his own statement, adding that “survivors of abuse deserve better.”

After outlining some of the abuse Previn says she suffered as a child, the article explains how she became romantically entangled with Allen. After she broke her ankle playing soccer, Allen offered to take her to school, she said. She began to soften toward him, and eventually the pair began going to New York Knicks games together.

Their affair began in the fall of 1991 when she was a 21-year-old freshman in college and Allen was 56. She came home from college and they watched a movie together; “he kissed me and I think that started it,” Previn told the magazine. She quickly realized she had “a moral dilemma” on her hands, and said that although it was clear her mother’s relationship with Allen was over, the couple’s decision to start a relationship of their own was still “a huge betrayal on both our parts.”

By January 1992, Mia Farrow discovered nude photos of Previn that Allen had taken. Previn told the magazine that her mother slapped her, “called everyone” and threw her out of the apartment they had shared. Though Previn said she regretted that her mother found the photos, she said they were taken in the privacy of Allen’s home when they “were both consenting adults.”

Dylan Farrow has said that Allen sexually abused her by touching her genitalia on Aug. 4, 1992. Later that month, Allen sued Mia Farrow in New York State Court for the custody of Dylan, Ronan and Moses Farrow, and shortly thereafter released a statement confirming his relationship with Previn.

“I only knew that he loved me when he gave the press conference and said it publicly,” Previn told the magazine. “Even then, I wasn’t sure if he meant it. We had never said those words to each other.”

Allen and Previn married on Dec. 23, 1997.

Merkin, the article’s author, said she asked Previn “if she thinks she could have handled the affair differently or shouldn’t have started it to begin with.”

“No,” Previn told her, without elaboration.