On Sunday, Dylan Farrow released a statement about the heretofore unseen video of herself as a child disclosing her allegations of sexual abuse against director Woody Allen to her mother Mia Farrow, which aired as part of the second episode of HBO’s Allen v. Farrow. “I’m writing this, because to be totally honest I have been losing sleep and overcome with anxiety,†she wrote in a statement, which she also posted to Twitter. “Tonight’s episode of the Allen v. Farrow docuseries features a video of me as a seven-year-old child disclosing my abuse to my mother. My mother gave me this video when I became an adult to do whatever I wanted with it. It shows me as I was then, a young, vulnerable child. ‘Little Dylan,’ whom I’ve tried ever since to protect.â€
The video itself was reportedly recorded on August 5, 1992, the day after Farrow alleges Woody Allen molested her. According to The Hollywood Reporter, a 7-year-old Dylan can be heard saying, “He touched [my] privates. And then he was breathing on my leg. And then he squeezed me too hard, that I couldn’t breathe.â€Â Mia Farrow claims she filmed her daughter’s accusation after a babysitter, Alison Strickland, alleged she had walked in on Allen with his face in Dylan’s lap.
“Personally, I had, for decades, pushed ‘Little Dylan’ away as a coping mechanism,†Dylan Farrow continues in her statement. “So part of my goal in allowing her to now speak is also to try and find some healing for me and my childhood self. It’s an attempt to make them whole again, and find some peace and closure.â€
Writes Farrow, “If you watch this video, I very much hope you will do so with empathy, compassion, and an open mind and heart and not use this as an opportunity to attack, turn away, criticize, mock or to future shun ‘Little Dylan’ and in doing so shame and silence the millions of abused children who are suffering in the world today. This is the most vulnerable part of who I am.â€
Woody Allen has denied the allegations against him since they became public during his custody battle with Mia Farrow that same year. “As has been known for decades, these allegations are categorically false,†a statement released last weekend by the director and wife Soon-Yi Previn said in response to the first episode of Allen v. Farrow. “Multiple agencies investigated them at the time and found that, whatever Dylan Farrow may have been led to believe, absolutely no abuse had ever taken place.â€