Dylan Farrow alleges that her father Woody Allen molested her in 1992 when she was 7 years old, a claim she first made in an open letter to the New York Times in 2014. Today, Farrow relived the experience, telling CBS This Morning’s Gayle King that on August 4, 1992, Allen had taken her up to an attic in her mother’s country house in Connecticut and touched her genitals while she played with a train set.
“He instructed me to lay down on my stomach and play with my brother’s toy train that was set up,†Farrow said. “He sat behind me in the doorway, and as I played with the toy train, I was sexually assaulted … As a 7-year-old I would say, I would have said he touched my private parts.â€
Farrow says she reported the incident to her mother and was taken to the pediatrician. Initially, she told the doctor that Allen had touched her on her shoulder, but returned later and said that she had been molested. According to Farrow, her mother asked, “Why didn’t you tell the doctor what you told me?†to which she replied, she was “embarrassed.â€
When accused of the assault in 1992, Allen maintained that Farrow had changed her story at the request of her mother, Mia Farrow, a suggestion that Dylan Farrow now calls “crazy.†“What I don’t understand is how is this crazy story of me being brainwashed and coached more believable than what I’m saying about being sexually assaulted by my father,†she told King. “He’s lying, and he’s been lying for so long.â€
Allen responded to Farrow’s latest claims in a statement to CBS This Morning:
“When this claim was first made more than 25 years ago, it was thoroughly investigated by both the Child Sexual Abuse Clinic of the Yale-New Haven Hospital and New York State Child Welfare. They both did so for many months and independently concluded that no molestation had ever taken place. Instead, they found it likely a vulnerable child had been coached to tell the story by her angry mother during a contentious breakup.
Dylan’s older brother Moses has said that he witnessed their mother doing exactly that — relentlessly coaching Dylan, trying to drum into her that her father was a dangerous sexual predator. It seems to have worked — and, sadly, I’m sure Dylan truly believes what she says.
But even though the Farrow family is cynically using the opportunity afforded by the Time’s Up movement to repeat this discredited allegation, that doesn’t make it any more true today than it was in the past. I never molested my daughter — as all investigations concluded a quarter of a century ago.â€