Woody Allen refuted renewed claims, in the HBO documentary Allen v Farrow, that he sexually abused his daughter Dylan in 1992, calling the series “a hatchet job riddled with lies”.
In a statement to the Hollywood Reporter, Allen and his wife, Soon-Yi Previn, said that filmmakers Amy Ziering and Kirby Dick “spent years surreptitiously collaborating with the Farrows and their facilitators to put together an ax job full of falsehoods”.
They added: “As has been known for decades, these claims are categorically false. Several agencies investigated them at the time and found that, regardless of what Dylan Farrow may have been led to believe, absolutely no abuse had occurred. “
In a 2018 TV interview, Dylan Farrow denied that he had been “brainwashed” or “trained” to make accusations against Allen.
Allen v Farrow, who aired his first of four episodes on Sunday on HBO in the United States, is described by Ziering and Dick as an investigation of the allegations, which arose during the custody battle after Allen’s separation from Mia Farrow in 1992. Ziering also denied their film was “a collaboration … with [Dylan Farrow] or the family ”.
There has been no response from the Farrows so far regarding the claims made by Allen and Previn about the documentary.
Allen has consistently denied any allegations of sexual abuse against Dylan Farrow, which was investigated in 1992-93 by the Connecticut State Police, the Child Sexual Abuse Clinic at Yale New Haven Hospital and the New York Department of Social Services; none concluded that there was sexual assault.
Mia Farrow and her son Ronan appear in Allen v Farrow, while Allen and Previn refused to participate. The statement says Allen and Previn “were approached less than two months ago and had only a few days to ‘respond’. Of course, they refused to do so. Dylan’s brother Moses, who defended Allen from the charges, also refused to appear in the film.
Ziering and Dick have worked together on a series of hard-hitting documentaries about sexual abuse, including The Oscar-nominated The Invisible War, which focused on rape in the U.S. military and The Hunting Ground, on sexual assault on college campuses.