Soon-Yi Previn accuses Mia Farrow of abuse and 'taking advantage' of #MeToo

Soon-Yi Previn, the wife of Woody Allen, has accused her adoptive mother Mia Farrow of abusive behaviour towards her during childhood.

In a rare interview, conducted with New York Magazine, she also accused Farrow of taking advantage of the #MeToo movement in attacking the director.

“Mia wasn’t maternal to me from the get-go,” said Previn, who was adopted by Farrow and her then husband, the pianist and conductor Andre Previn.

“I was never interested in writing a ‘Mommie Dearest,’ getting even with Mia — none of that.

“But what’s happened to Woody is so upsetting, so unjust. [Mia] has taken advantage of the #MeToo movement and paraded Dylan as a victim. And a whole new generation is hearing about it when they shouldn’t.”

A host of actors who have worked with Allen have since distanced themselves from their work with him, while Amazon is said to be delaying the release of his forthcoming film A Rainy Day In New York ‘indefinitely’.

“She tried to teach me the alphabet with those wooden blocks. If I didn’t get them right, sometimes she’d throw them at me or down on the floor. Who can learn under that pressure?” Previn went on.

She also claims that Farrow would hold her upside down for periods of time because ‘she thought – or she read it, God knows where she came up with the notion – that blood going to my head would make me smarter or something.’

Farrow cut Previn off after she found nude photos of her, aged 21, thus uncovering the affair she had been having with her then-partner Allen.

“Of course, she slapped me, you know the way of things. And then she called everyone,” Previn went on.

“She didn’t contain the situation; she just spread it like wildfire, and then she was screaming at Woody when he came over. Meanwhile, Dylan and Satchel [Ronan] are living under her roof and they are very small, 6 and 4 years old. They hear their mother going crazy, screaming in the middle of the night for hours.”

The account tallies with that of Moses Farrow, another of Mia Farrow’s adopted children, who has also accused his mother of abusive behaviour as a child.

Farrow accused Allen of sexually abusing their young daughter Dylan Farrow in 1992, which then led to a bitter custody fight between the couple.

Allen’s bid for custody of his children was ultimately rejected, but an investigation also ruled that Dylan had not been sexually assaulted.

Allen has long since protested his innocence, suggesting the accusation from Farrow was motivated out of revenge, and that she coached Dylan into believing she had been molested.

But Farrow’s other children, who have long supporting Dylan’s claim, rallied together against the interview.

Journalist Ronan Farrow, who has become synonymous with expose abuse scandals, including pivotal investigations on Harvey Weinstein and CBS chairman Les Moonves, called New York Magazine’s decision to publish the piece, written by a long-time friend of Allen, ‘shameful’.

Dylan Farrow also released a statement:

Farrow’s other children gave a joint statement, via Dylan Farrow’s Twitter page:

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