After a week of silence in the face of allegations of child molestation, filmmaker Woody Allen has spoken out and denied the accusation.
In a forceful op-ed column in the New York Times, the 78-year-old filmmaker denied that in 1992 he abused his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow, who a week ago wrote a letter alleging that when she was 7 Allen had taken her to an attic in the family home and molested her.
"Of course, I did not molest Dylan. I loved her and hope one day she will grasp how she has been cheated out of having a loving father and exploited by a mother more interested in her own festering anger than her daughter's well-being," Allen wrote in the piece, which will be published this weekend in the newspaper's print edition, referring to Dylan Farrow's mother Mia Farrow.
"Dylan has come forward with the accusations that the Yale experts investigated and found false," Allen said, referencing a six-month investigation that followed the initial accusations.
"Plus a few little added creative flourishes that seem to have magically appeared during our 21-year estrangement," he added, in reference to Dylan Farrow's letter. Despite Mia Farrow maintaining during their custody battle in the early 1990s that Allen had abused Dylan, the filmmaker was never charged.
The Allen column is the first response from the 'Blue Jasmine' director as the 21-year-old charges have resurfaced in recent months. Ronan Farrow, the filmmaker's presumed biological son with Mia Farrow, had sent a tweet citing the alleged molestation after Allen's Golden Globes tribute last month.
The resurfaced allegations, combined with Dylan Farrow speaking out for the first time, have shone a light on the filmmaker just weeks after receiving an Oscar nomination for 'Blue Jasmine' starring Cate Blanchett.
Allen said that despite the lengthy response he did not wish to speak of it further. "This piece will be my final word on this entire matter and no one will be responding on my behalf to any further comments on it by any party.
