Num longo texto publicado esta semana, o filho adoptivo de Woody Allen e Mia Farrow diz que o produtor nunca abusou sexualmente da sua irmã, Dylan Farrow, e descreve a mãe como manipuladora e abusadora.
Meses depois de Dylan Farrow ter voltado a vir a público para alegar que o seu pai adoptivo tinha abusado sexualmente dela, o seu irmão adoptivo Moses Farrow decidiu partilhar com o mundo a sua versão dos acontecimentos do Verão de 1992, num longo texto publicado no seu blogue pessoal. Segundo este, a irmã mais nova nunca foi molestada por Woody Allen, mas antes vítima de uma campanha de manipulação da mãe, Mia Farrow.
De acordo com Moses – hoje terapeuta profissional –, a sua infância ficou marcada pelo abuso físico e psicológico por parte da sua mãe. Descreve mesmo ocasiões em que esta arrastou um dos filhos pelas escadas abaixo e o trancou num barracão durante a noite, ou que atirou uma peça de porcelana a Soon-Yi. Na altura em que Dylan Farrow diz ter sido alvo de abusos por parte de Allen, tinham passado sete meses desde que Mia Farrow descobrira a relação entre a sua filha adoptiva Soon-Yi e o então parceiro Woody Allen – o realizador e Soon-Yi Previn ainda hoje são casados. Nessa altura, recorda Moses, há meses que Mia Farrow dizia aos filhos que Woody era “maldoso, um monstro, o diabo”, e que Soon-Yi “estava morta” para eles.
“A minha mãe era a nossa única fonte de informação sobre Woody – e ela era extremamente convincente”, descreve. “Também tinha aprendido repetidamente que ir contra a sua vontade trazia repercussões horríveis.”
Por isso, quando Woody Allen foi passar o dia com os filhos adoptivos à casa de Connecticut – enquanto Mia foi às compras –, todos estavam alerta. “Além de cinco miúdos, havia três adultos na casa [duas amas e uma explicadora de Francês], os quais tinham todos sido instruídos durante meses de que Woody era um monstro. Nenhum de nós teria permitido que a Dylan se afastasse com Woody, mesmo que tentasse”, garante, atestando que, mesmo tendo visto Woody a entrar e sair da sala nesse dia, este nunca o fez ao mesmo tempo que Dylan.
Moses comenta que as pessoas se apoiaram na relação de Woody e Soon-Yi (que nunca foi sua filha adoptiva) para se convencerem de que as alegações de Dylan eram verdadeiras. "Sim, [a relação] era pouco ortodoxa, desconfortável, perturbadora para a nossa família e magoou terrivelmente a minha mãe. Mas a relação, por si só, não foi nem de perto nem de longe tão arrasadora para a nossa família como a insistência da minha mãe em fazer da sua traição o centro das nossas vidas a partir daí”. O terapeuta aponta ainda algumas incongruências na versão dos acontecimentos da irmã mais nova, como o comboio de brincar que Dylan associa ao momento do abuso e que não estaria na divisão da casa onde esta afirma que aconteceu o incidente.
Dylan detalhou pela primeira vez o alegado abuso numa carta aberta ao The New York Times em 2014 e este ano voltou a falar do assunto numa entrevista televisiva ao programa CBS This Morning. Há dois anos, Moses Farrow veio a público dizer que a irmã tinha sido manipulada pela mãe. “O que não compreendo é como é que esta história doida de eu ter sido alvo de uma lavagem cerebral e treinada [para fabricar uma história de abuso de menores] é mais credível do que o que estou a dizer sobre ter sido atacada sexualmente pelo meu pai”, atirou Dylan, recentemente.
Desta vez, Hollywood não ficou indiferente e várias estrelas fizeram questão de afirmar publicamente que estavam do lado de Dylan. Foi o caso de Mira Sorvino – que lhe escreveu uma carta aberta –, Natalie Portman, Jessica Chastain e Timothee Chalamet, que anunciou que iria doar o seu salário do filme realizado por Woody Allen, A Rainy Day in New York. Houve também quem, como Diane Keaton, Kate Winslet e Alec Baldwin, viesse a público em defesa do realizador, considerando que este estava a ser alvo de uma injustiça.
No seu texto, Moses Farrow dirige-se às pessoas que se mostram arrependidas por terem trabalhado com o seu pai no passado: “Precipitaram-se ao juntar-se a um coro de condenação com base numa acusação desacreditada [por múltiplas investigações], por medo de não estarem no lado ‘certo’ deste grande movimento social [o #MeToo]”. Deixa ainda uma nota à irmã: “Desejo-te paz e a sabedoria para compreenderes que dedicar a vida a ajudar a nossa mãe a destruir a reputação do nosso pai não te trará, provavelmente, nenhum consolo.”
Woody Allen sempre negou ter cometido qualquer abuso sobre Dylan Farrow e o caso foi alvo de duas investigações, nos anos 90, que não resultaram em qualquer acusação formal ao realizador. Em Janeiro, quando Dylan Farrow falou à CBS sobre o alegado abuso, Allen reagiu em poucas horas acusando a “família Farrow” de “usar cinicamente a oportunidade dada pelo movimento Time’s Up”.
Além de Mia e Dylan Farrow, também Ronan Farrow, o jornalista que assinou uma das duas primeiras investigações sobre Harvey Weinstein, defende que Woody Allen (o seu pai biológico) abusou de Dylan Farrow.
A SON SPEAKS OUT By Moses Farrow
I’m a very private person and not at all interested in public attention. But, given the incredibly inaccurate and misleading attacks on my father, Woody Allen, I feel that I can no longer stay silent as he continues to be condemned for a crime he did not commit.
I was present for everything that transpired in our house before, during, and after the alleged event. Now that the public hysteria of earlier this year has died down a little and I have some hope that the truth can get a fair hearing, I want to share my story.
I was present for everything that transpired in our house before, during, and after the alleged event. Now that the public hysteria of earlier this year has died down a little and I have some hope that the truth can get a fair hearing, I want to share my story.
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August 4, 1992 was a warm, sunny day in Bridgewater, Connecticut, but in our family’s country home, Frog Hollow, there was a chill in the air. My mother, Mia Farrow, was out shopping with her close friend since childhood, Casey Pascal. I was 14 at the time, and home that day with my little sister Dylan, who had just turned seven, my four-year-old brother Satchel (who now goes by the name Ronan) and Casey’s three kids. We were being supervised by our nanny, Kristi, as well as Casey’s nanny, Alison, and our French tutor, Sophie. It was a full house.
There was another grown-up in the TV room that day, sitting on the floor, watching “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” with the rest of us – Woody Allen. On the surface, it was not unlike his previous visits to our country home. But my mother had put all of us on notice not to let him out of our sight. She was understandably furious: seven months earlier she had learned that he was in an intimate relationship with my 21-year-old sister Soon-Yi, after discovering Polaroids of her in Woody’s apartment. For months now, she had been drilling it into our heads like a mantra: Woody was “evil,” “a monster,” “the devil,” and Soon-Yi was “dead to us.” This was the constant refrain, whether or not Woody was around. (So often did she repeat it that Satchel would announce to one of our nannies, “My sister is fucking my father.” He had just turned four.) My mother was our only source of information about Woody – and she was extremely convincing.
As the oldest child at the house that summer day, I took Mia’s warnings very seriously. I thought my job was to support my mother and I desperately wanted her approval, as did all of her children. I had also learned repeatedly that to go against her wishes would bring horrible repercussions. I would keep my eyes on Woody until she returned. But secretly, I was torn.
To help explain why, I want to give you a little background about our family.
Even though Woody and Mia never married – and he never lived with us or even stayed the night at our apartment in the city – he would often come over around 6:30 in the morning, bringing two newspapers and a bunch of muffins. I would wake up before the others, and so he and I would sit at the kitchen table together for breakfast. While he read The New York Times, I’d grab the Post and go straight to the comics and word puzzles. We’d spend this peaceful time together before waking Dylan. He’d make her a couple of slices of toast with cinnamon or honey and be there as she ate her breakfast. He hardly seemed like a monster to me.
My older siblings were all either biological or adopted children of Mia and her ex-husband André Previn. In 1985 Mia adopted Dylan. Two years later she and Woody had their only biological child, Satchel. At the age of 49, Woody seemed to delight in his new role of father.
Mia had adopted me, her seventh child, as a single parent in 1980. In 1992 she successfully petitioned to allow Woody to co-adopt both Dylan and me, writing to the adoption agency, detailing what an excellent father he was. I was thrilled when Woody officially became my father, since he had already taken on that role in my life. We played catch and chess, fished, and shot hoops. As the years went by, Satchel, Dylan and I were frequent visitors to his movie sets and his editing room. In the evenings, he’d come over to Mia’s apartment and spend time with us. I never once saw anything that indicated inappropriate behavior at any time.
Then, of course, the news of Woody and Soon-Yi went public – and everything changed. My mother insisted that we remove both of them from our lives, and we had no choice but to accept.
Even people who doubt Dylan’s claims of assault, often cling to Woody’s relationship with Soon-Yi as justification for their skepticism about him. The public attacks on Soon-Yi by complete strangers still stagger me, as does the general misinformation that so many people consider fact. She is not Woody’s daughter (adopted, step, or otherwise), nor is she developmentally challenged. (She got a master’s degree in special education from Columbia University!) And the claim that they started dating while she was underage is totally false.
In truth, Woody and Soon-Yi rarely even spoke during her childhood. It was my mother who first suggested, when Soon-Yi was 20, that Woody reach out and spend time with her. He agreed and started taking her to Knicks games. That’s how their romance started. Yes, it was unorthodox, uncomfortable, disruptive to our family and it hurt my mother terribly. But the relationship itself was not nearly as devastating to our family as my mother’s insistence on making this betrayal the center of all our lives from then on.
But the fatal dysfunction within my childhood home had nothing to do with Woody. It began long before he entered the picture and came straight from a deep and persistent darkness within the Farrow family.
It was common knowledge in Hollywood that my grandfather, the director John Farrow, was a notorious drinker and serial philanderer. There were numerous alcohol-fueled arguments between her parents, and Mia told me that she was the victim of attempted molestation within her own family. Her brother, my uncle John, who visited us many times when we were young, is currently in prison on a conviction of multiple child molestation charges. (My mother has never publicly commented on this or expressed concern about his victims.) My uncle Patrick and his family would often come by, but those visits could end abruptly as Mia and Patrick would often wind up arguing. Patrick would commit suicide in 2009.
My mother, of course, had her own darkness. She married 50-year-old Frank Sinatra when she was only 21. After they divorced, she moved in to live with her close friend Dory Previn and her husband André. When my mother became pregnant by André, the Previns’ marriage broke up, leading to Dory’s institutionalization. It was never spoken of in our home, of course, and not even known to me until a few years ago. But, as I look at it – as a licensed therapist as well as an eyewitness – it’s easy to see the seeds of dysfunction that would flourish within our own home.
It was important to my mother to project to the world a picture of a happy blended household of both biological and adopted children, but this was far from the truth. I’m sure my mother had good intentions in adopting children with disabilities from the direst of circumstances, but the reality inside our walls was very different. It pains me to recall instances in which I witnessed siblings, some blind or physically disabled, dragged down a flight of stairs to be thrown into a bedroom or a closet, then having the door locked from the outside. She even shut my brother Thaddeus, paraplegic from polio, in an outdoor shed overnight as punishment for a minor transgression.
Soon-Yi was her most frequent scapegoat. My sister had an independent streak and, of all of us, was the least intimidated by Mia. When pushed, she would call our mother out on her behavior and ugly arguments would ensue. When Soon-Yi was young, Mia once threw a large porcelain centerpiece at her head. Luckily it missed, but the shattered pieces hit her legs. Years later, Mia beat her with a telephone receiver. Soon-Yi’s made it clear that her desire was simply to be left alone, which increasingly became the case. Even if her relationship with Woody was unconventional, it allowed her to escape. Others weren’t so lucky.
Most media sources claim my sister Tam died of “heart failure” at the age of 21. In fact, Tam struggled with depression for much of her life, a situation exacerbated by my mother refusing to get her help, insisting that Tam was just “moody.” One afternoon in 2000, after one final fight with Mia, which ended with my mother leaving the house, Tam committed suicide by overdosing on pills. My mother would tell others that the drug overdose was accidental, saying that Tam, who was blind, didn’t know which pills she was taking. But Tam had both an ironclad memory and sense of spatial recognition. And, of course, blindness didn’t impair her ability to count.
The details of Tam’s overdose and the fight with Mia that precipitated it were relayed directly to me by my brother Thaddeus, a first-hand witness. Tragically, he is no longer able to confirm this account. Just two years ago, Thaddeus also committed suicide by shooting himself in his car, less than 10 minutes from my mother’s house.
My sister Lark was another fatality. She wound up on a path of self-destruction, struggled with addiction, and eventually died in poverty from AIDS-related causes in 2008 at age 35.
For all of us, life under my mother’s roof was impossible if you didn’t do exactly what you were told, no matter how questionable the demand.
The summer between first and second grades, she was having new wallpaper installed in the bedroom I slept in, across the hall from hers on the second floor of the Connecticut house. I was getting ready to go to sleep, when my mother came over to my bed and found a tape measure. She gave me a piercing look that stopped me in my tracks and asked if I had taken it, as she had been looking for it all day. I stood in front of her, frozen. She asked why it was on my bed. I told her I didn’t know, that perhaps a workman had left it there. She asked again and again and again.
When I didn’t give the answer she wanted, she slapped my face, knocking off my glasses. She told me I was lying and directed me to tell my brothers and sisters that I had taken the tape measure. Through my tears I listened to her as she explained that we would rehearse what should have happened. She would walk into the room and I would tell her I was sorry for taking the tape measure, that I had taken it to play with and that I would never do it again. She made me rehearse it at least a half-dozen times.
That was the start of her coaching, drilling, scripting, and rehearsing – in essence, brainwashing. I became anxious and fearful. Once, when I was given a new pair of jeans, I thought they would look cool if I cut off a couple of the belt loops. When Mia saw what I had done, she spanked me repeatedly and had me remove all my clothing, saying, “You’re not deserving of any clothes” and making me stand naked in the corner of her room, in front of my older siblings who had just returned from dinner with their father André. (After I spoke to People magazine in 2014 about how I was treated, Dylan called it a “betrayal” and said that I was “dead to” her. She later publicly dismissed my recollections of my childhood as “irrelevant.” This from a woman who now styles herself an “advocate for abuse victims.”)
Fighting back was not a viable option. One summer day, Mia accused me of leaving the curtains closed in the TV room. They had been drawn the day before when Dylan and Satchel were watching a movie. She insisted that I had closed them and left them that way. Her friend Casey had come over to visit and while they were in the kitchen, my mother insisted I had shut the curtains. At that point, I couldn’t take it anymore and I lost it, yelling, “You’re lying!” She shot me a look and took me into the bathroom next to the TV room. She hit me uncontrollably all over my body. She slapped me, pushed me backwards and hit me on my chest, shouting, “How dare you say I’m a liar in front of my friend. You’re the pathological liar.” I was defeated, deflated, beaten and beaten down. Mia had stripped me of my voice and my sense of self. It was clear that if I stepped even slightly outside her carefully crafted reality, she would not tolerate it. It was an upbringing that made me, paradoxically, both fiercely loyal and obedient to her, as well as deeply afraid.
In short, it was not a happy home – or a healthy one. Which brings us back to August 4, 1992.
Strangers on Twitter pose me this question all the time: “You weren’t there to witness the assault, so how do you know it didn’t happen?” But how could anyone witness an assault if it never happened?
As the “man of the house” that day, I had promised to keep an eye out for any trouble, and I was doing just that. I remember where Woody sat in the TV room, and I can picture where Dylan and Satchel were. Not that everybody stayed glued to the same spot, but I deliberately made sure to note everyone’s coming and going. I do remember that Woody would leave the room on occasion, but never with Dylan. He would wander into another room to make a phone call, read the paper, use the bathroom, or step outside to get some air and walk around the large pond on the property.
Along with five kids, there were three adults in the house, all of whom had been told for months what a monster Woody was. None of us would have allowed Dylan to step away with Woody, even if he tried. Casey’s nanny, Alison, would later claim that she walked into the TV room and saw Woody kneeling on the floor with his head in Dylan’s lap on the couch. Really? With all of us in there? And if she had witnessed that, why wouldn’t she have said something immediately to our nanny Kristi? (I also remember some discussion of this act perhaps taking place on the staircase that led to Mia’s room. Again, this would have been in full view of anyone who entered the living room, assuming Woody managed to walk off with Dylan in the first place.) The narrative had to be changed since the only place for anyone to commit an act of depravity in private would have been in a small crawl space off my mother’s upstairs bedroom. By default, the attic became the scene of the alleged assault.
In her widely-circulated 2014 open letter in The New York Times, the adult Dylan suddenly seemed to remember every moment of the alleged assault, writing, “He told me to lay on my stomach and play with my brother’s electric train set. Then he sexually assaulted me. He talked to me while he did it, whispering that I was a good girl, that this was our secret, promising that we’d go to Paris and I’d be a star in his movies. I remember staring at that toy train, focusing on it as it traveled in its circle around the attic. To this day, I find it difficult to look at toy trains.”
It’s a precise and compelling narrative, but there’s a major problem: there was no electric train set in that attic. There was, in fact, no way for kids to play up there, even if we had wanted to. It was an unfinished crawl space, under a steeply-angled gabled roof, with exposed nails and floorboards, billows of fiberglass insulation, filled with mousetraps and droppings and stinking of mothballs, and crammed with trunks full of hand-me-down clothes and my mother’s old wardrobes.
The idea that the space could possibly have accommodated a functioning electric train set, circling around the attic, is ridiculous. One of my brothers did have an elaborate model train set, but it was set up in the boys’ room, a converted garage on the first floor. (Maybe that was the train set my sister thinks she remembers?) Now, whenever I hear Dylan making a public statement about what allegedly happened to her that day when she was barely seven, I can only think of that imaginary train set, which she never brought up during the original investigation or custody hearing. Did somebody suggest to the adult Dylan that such a specific detail would make her story more credible? Or does she really believe she remembers this train “circling around the attic” the same way she says she remembers Woody’s whispered promises of trips to Paris and movie stardom (kind of odd enticements to offer a 7-year-old, rather than a new toy or a doll)? And all this apparently took place while those of us who promised to have our eyes trained on Woody were downstairs, seemingly oblivious to what was happening right above our heads?
Eventually, my mother returned with Casey and her newest adoptees, Tam and baby Isaiah. There were no complaints by the nannies, and nothing odd about Dylan’s behavior. In fact, Woody and Mia went out to dinner that night. After dinner, they returned to Frog Hollow and Woody stayed over in a downstairs bedroom – with, apparently, no abnormal behavior by Dylan, and no negative reports from any of the grown-ups.
The next morning, Woody was still at the house. Before he left, I briefly wandered into the living room and witnessed Dylan and Satchel sitting with him on the floor by a wall with a big picture window. The kids had a catalogue from a toy store and were marking off the toys they wanted him to bring back on his next visit. It was a cheerful, playful atmosphere – which would soon seem jarring compared to what Mia would allege happened less than a day before. Many years later, I once mentioned my recollection to Woody, and he said that he, too, remembered it quite vividly, telling me how he had told Satchel and Dylan to mark one or two toys each, but they had laughingly managed to check off virtually every toy in the catalogue. He remembers bringing it back to the city with him, with the intention of purchasing a few of the items they had checked. He told me he wound up holding onto that catalogue for years, having no idea that he would never see his daughter again.
Interestingly, it was only after Woody returned to the city that Mia would receive a phone call that would change our lives forever. It was from her friend Casey, who reported that her nanny Alison had witnessed Woody supposedly placing his head in Dylan’s lap on the sofa in the TV room.
When Monica, our long-term nanny who was out that day, returned to work the next day, I confided to her that I thought the story was made up. Monica, who had been with us for six years, would quit her job a few months later, saying that Mia was pressuring her to take her side and support the accusation.
It was Monica who later testified that she saw Mia taping Dylan describe how Woody had supposedly touched her in the attic, saying it took Mia two or three days to make the recording. In her testimony she said, “I recall Ms. Farrow saying to Dylan at that time, ‘Dylan, what did daddy do... and what did he do next?’ Dylan appeared not to be interested, and Ms. Farrow would stop taping for a while and then continue.” I can vouch for this, having witnessed some of this process myself. When another one of Dylan’s therapists, Dr. Nancy Schultz, criticized the making of the video, and questioned the legitimacy of the content, she too, was fired immediately by Mia. (My mother, for whom “loyalty” was hugely important, would also fire another long-term caretaker, Mavis, claiming that she was making statements against her.)
During the custody hearing, my mother kept stressing how we needed to stick together as a family. Frightened and beaten down, I, too, played my part. I even wrote a letter condemning Woody, saying that he had done something horrible and unforgivable, and had broken my dreams. I even read the letter for the news media that were now regularly gathered at the end of our driveway, knowing that doing so would earn my mother’s approval. That public denouncement of my father remains the biggest regret of my life.
Later that year, I remember many meetings with lawyers and an evaluation I went to in New Jersey. I am naturally shy and kept quiet until I finally felt the need to speak up. I told the evaluator that I felt stuck between my parents. Afterwards, I returned to my school and my mother called, screaming. “Do you realize what you’ve done? You’ve destroyed my case! You need to call your lawyer and tell her you take back what you said, tell her that you recant your statements and want them stricken from the record.” I felt my stomach drop. When I next spoke to the lawyer, I repeated her words verbatim, “I take back what I said, I recant my statements and want them stricken from the record.” Again, the pattern held: I was forced to follow my mother’s script to prove my loyalty.
Even though she still lectured us about “staying together as a family,” at the beginning of my sophomore year of high school, my mother sent me to boarding school in Connecticut against my wishes. I objected that I wanted to stay in New York; she didn’t care. My usefulness in the family drama had played itself out. I had made my statement against my father, my role was done, and I was sent away.
At the time, of course, I knew nothing about the six-month criminal investigation conducted by the Child Sexual Abuse Clinic of the Yale/New Haven Hospital, ordered by the Connecticut state police. But since this allegation was renewed a few years ago, I’ve seen the results of that investigation. It specifically concluded that “Dylan was not abused by Mr. Allen,” that her statements had a “rehearsed quality” and that they were “likely coached or influenced by her mother.” Those conclusions perfectly match my own childhood experience: coaching, influencing, and rehearsing are three words that sum up exactly how my mother tried to raise us. I know that Dylan has recently referred to this brainwashing theory as “spin” by our father – but it was nothing of the sort. It was not only the conclusion reached by a state-ordered investigation, it was the reality of life in our household.
That report put an end to any chance of criminal charges being brought against my father. A second, 14-month investigation by the New York State Department of Social Services, reached the same conclusion as Yale/New Haven: “No credible evidence was found that [Dylan Farrow] has been abused or maltreated.” Nevertheless, when a judge granted custody of Satchel and Dylan to Mia, at 15, I chose the path of least resistance, and also stayed with my mother.
In my mid-twenties, shortly after I graduated from my master’s program, I felt that I wanted to reach out to Woody, and communicated this to Mia. I’ll never forget how happy I felt when I received her return email saying she would support it, understanding my need for a father figure. That happiness was short-lived. Less than 24 hours later, she reconsidered, and wrote back, saying that she forbade me from making contact with “that monster.”
Several years later, I became estranged from my mother, but it has taken years of self-reflection, professional help and support from those I love – and who love me in return – for me to appreciate the sad truth of my childhood and of what my mother did to my siblings and me. I am grateful to have awakened to the truth of what happened to us – but disappointed that it took me this long to get here.
Meanwhile, though, my father continues to face wave after wave of unfair and unrelenting attacks from my mother and her surrogates, questioning why he has been “given a pass” all these years. But Woody was not given a pass. Quite the opposite. Mia’s accusation was fully investigated by two separate agencies and charges were never brought. Mia reached the end of the legal runway after it was determined that the abuse never occurred. But trial by media thrives on the lack of long-term memory and Twitter requires neither knowledge nor restraint.
To those who have become convinced of my father’s guilt, I ask you to consider this: In this time of #MeToo, when so many movie heavyweights have faced dozens of accusations, my father has been accused of wrongdoing only once, by an enraged ex-partner during contentious custody negotiations. During almost 60 years in the public eye, not one other person has come forward to accuse him of even behaving badly on a date, or acting inappropriately in any professional situation, let alone molesting a child. As a trained professional, I know that child molestation is a compulsive sickness and deviation that demands repetition. Dylan was alone with Woody in his apartment countless times over the years without a hint of impropriety, yet some would have you believe that at the age of 56, he suddenly decided to become a child molester in a house full of hostile people ordered to watch him like a hawk.
To the actors who have worked with my father and have voiced regret for doing so: You have rushed to join the chorus of condemnation based on a discredited accusation for fear of not being on the “right” side of a major social movement. But rather than accept the hysteria of Twitter mobs, mindlessly repeating a story examined and discredited 25 years ago, please consider what I have to say. After all, I was there – in the house, in the room – and I know both my father and mother and what each is capable of a whole lot better than you.
To my sister Dylan: Like you, I believe in the power of speaking out. I have broken my silence about the abuse inflicted by our mother. My healing began only after getting away from her. And what she has done to you is unbearable. I wish you peace, and the wisdom to understand that devoting your life to helping our mother destroy our father’s reputation is unlikely to bring you closure in any kind of lasting way.
Finally, to my mother: One thing you always said you appreciated about me was my ability to listen. I listened to you for years and held your truth above all others. You once said to me, “It’s not healthy to hold onto anger.” Yet here we are, 26 years later. I’m guessing your next step will be to launch a campaign to discredit me for speaking out. I know it comes with the territory. And it’s a burden I am willing to bear.
But, after all this time, enough is enough. You and I both know the truth. And it’s time for this retribution to end.
There was another grown-up in the TV room that day, sitting on the floor, watching “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” with the rest of us – Woody Allen. On the surface, it was not unlike his previous visits to our country home. But my mother had put all of us on notice not to let him out of our sight. She was understandably furious: seven months earlier she had learned that he was in an intimate relationship with my 21-year-old sister Soon-Yi, after discovering Polaroids of her in Woody’s apartment. For months now, she had been drilling it into our heads like a mantra: Woody was “evil,” “a monster,” “the devil,” and Soon-Yi was “dead to us.” This was the constant refrain, whether or not Woody was around. (So often did she repeat it that Satchel would announce to one of our nannies, “My sister is fucking my father.” He had just turned four.) My mother was our only source of information about Woody – and she was extremely convincing.
As the oldest child at the house that summer day, I took Mia’s warnings very seriously. I thought my job was to support my mother and I desperately wanted her approval, as did all of her children. I had also learned repeatedly that to go against her wishes would bring horrible repercussions. I would keep my eyes on Woody until she returned. But secretly, I was torn.
To help explain why, I want to give you a little background about our family.
Even though Woody and Mia never married – and he never lived with us or even stayed the night at our apartment in the city – he would often come over around 6:30 in the morning, bringing two newspapers and a bunch of muffins. I would wake up before the others, and so he and I would sit at the kitchen table together for breakfast. While he read The New York Times, I’d grab the Post and go straight to the comics and word puzzles. We’d spend this peaceful time together before waking Dylan. He’d make her a couple of slices of toast with cinnamon or honey and be there as she ate her breakfast. He hardly seemed like a monster to me.
My older siblings were all either biological or adopted children of Mia and her ex-husband André Previn. In 1985 Mia adopted Dylan. Two years later she and Woody had their only biological child, Satchel. At the age of 49, Woody seemed to delight in his new role of father.
Mia had adopted me, her seventh child, as a single parent in 1980. In 1992 she successfully petitioned to allow Woody to co-adopt both Dylan and me, writing to the adoption agency, detailing what an excellent father he was. I was thrilled when Woody officially became my father, since he had already taken on that role in my life. We played catch and chess, fished, and shot hoops. As the years went by, Satchel, Dylan and I were frequent visitors to his movie sets and his editing room. In the evenings, he’d come over to Mia’s apartment and spend time with us. I never once saw anything that indicated inappropriate behavior at any time.
Then, of course, the news of Woody and Soon-Yi went public – and everything changed. My mother insisted that we remove both of them from our lives, and we had no choice but to accept.
Even people who doubt Dylan’s claims of assault, often cling to Woody’s relationship with Soon-Yi as justification for their skepticism about him. The public attacks on Soon-Yi by complete strangers still stagger me, as does the general misinformation that so many people consider fact. She is not Woody’s daughter (adopted, step, or otherwise), nor is she developmentally challenged. (She got a master’s degree in special education from Columbia University!) And the claim that they started dating while she was underage is totally false.
In truth, Woody and Soon-Yi rarely even spoke during her childhood. It was my mother who first suggested, when Soon-Yi was 20, that Woody reach out and spend time with her. He agreed and started taking her to Knicks games. That’s how their romance started. Yes, it was unorthodox, uncomfortable, disruptive to our family and it hurt my mother terribly. But the relationship itself was not nearly as devastating to our family as my mother’s insistence on making this betrayal the center of all our lives from then on.
But the fatal dysfunction within my childhood home had nothing to do with Woody. It began long before he entered the picture and came straight from a deep and persistent darkness within the Farrow family.
It was common knowledge in Hollywood that my grandfather, the director John Farrow, was a notorious drinker and serial philanderer. There were numerous alcohol-fueled arguments between her parents, and Mia told me that she was the victim of attempted molestation within her own family. Her brother, my uncle John, who visited us many times when we were young, is currently in prison on a conviction of multiple child molestation charges. (My mother has never publicly commented on this or expressed concern about his victims.) My uncle Patrick and his family would often come by, but those visits could end abruptly as Mia and Patrick would often wind up arguing. Patrick would commit suicide in 2009.
My mother, of course, had her own darkness. She married 50-year-old Frank Sinatra when she was only 21. After they divorced, she moved in to live with her close friend Dory Previn and her husband André. When my mother became pregnant by André, the Previns’ marriage broke up, leading to Dory’s institutionalization. It was never spoken of in our home, of course, and not even known to me until a few years ago. But, as I look at it – as a licensed therapist as well as an eyewitness – it’s easy to see the seeds of dysfunction that would flourish within our own home.
It was important to my mother to project to the world a picture of a happy blended household of both biological and adopted children, but this was far from the truth. I’m sure my mother had good intentions in adopting children with disabilities from the direst of circumstances, but the reality inside our walls was very different. It pains me to recall instances in which I witnessed siblings, some blind or physically disabled, dragged down a flight of stairs to be thrown into a bedroom or a closet, then having the door locked from the outside. She even shut my brother Thaddeus, paraplegic from polio, in an outdoor shed overnight as punishment for a minor transgression.
Soon-Yi was her most frequent scapegoat. My sister had an independent streak and, of all of us, was the least intimidated by Mia. When pushed, she would call our mother out on her behavior and ugly arguments would ensue. When Soon-Yi was young, Mia once threw a large porcelain centerpiece at her head. Luckily it missed, but the shattered pieces hit her legs. Years later, Mia beat her with a telephone receiver. Soon-Yi’s made it clear that her desire was simply to be left alone, which increasingly became the case. Even if her relationship with Woody was unconventional, it allowed her to escape. Others weren’t so lucky.
Most media sources claim my sister Tam died of “heart failure” at the age of 21. In fact, Tam struggled with depression for much of her life, a situation exacerbated by my mother refusing to get her help, insisting that Tam was just “moody.” One afternoon in 2000, after one final fight with Mia, which ended with my mother leaving the house, Tam committed suicide by overdosing on pills. My mother would tell others that the drug overdose was accidental, saying that Tam, who was blind, didn’t know which pills she was taking. But Tam had both an ironclad memory and sense of spatial recognition. And, of course, blindness didn’t impair her ability to count.
The details of Tam’s overdose and the fight with Mia that precipitated it were relayed directly to me by my brother Thaddeus, a first-hand witness. Tragically, he is no longer able to confirm this account. Just two years ago, Thaddeus also committed suicide by shooting himself in his car, less than 10 minutes from my mother’s house.
My sister Lark was another fatality. She wound up on a path of self-destruction, struggled with addiction, and eventually died in poverty from AIDS-related causes in 2008 at age 35.
For all of us, life under my mother’s roof was impossible if you didn’t do exactly what you were told, no matter how questionable the demand.
The summer between first and second grades, she was having new wallpaper installed in the bedroom I slept in, across the hall from hers on the second floor of the Connecticut house. I was getting ready to go to sleep, when my mother came over to my bed and found a tape measure. She gave me a piercing look that stopped me in my tracks and asked if I had taken it, as she had been looking for it all day. I stood in front of her, frozen. She asked why it was on my bed. I told her I didn’t know, that perhaps a workman had left it there. She asked again and again and again.
When I didn’t give the answer she wanted, she slapped my face, knocking off my glasses. She told me I was lying and directed me to tell my brothers and sisters that I had taken the tape measure. Through my tears I listened to her as she explained that we would rehearse what should have happened. She would walk into the room and I would tell her I was sorry for taking the tape measure, that I had taken it to play with and that I would never do it again. She made me rehearse it at least a half-dozen times.
That was the start of her coaching, drilling, scripting, and rehearsing – in essence, brainwashing. I became anxious and fearful. Once, when I was given a new pair of jeans, I thought they would look cool if I cut off a couple of the belt loops. When Mia saw what I had done, she spanked me repeatedly and had me remove all my clothing, saying, “You’re not deserving of any clothes” and making me stand naked in the corner of her room, in front of my older siblings who had just returned from dinner with their father André. (After I spoke to People magazine in 2014 about how I was treated, Dylan called it a “betrayal” and said that I was “dead to” her. She later publicly dismissed my recollections of my childhood as “irrelevant.” This from a woman who now styles herself an “advocate for abuse victims.”)
Fighting back was not a viable option. One summer day, Mia accused me of leaving the curtains closed in the TV room. They had been drawn the day before when Dylan and Satchel were watching a movie. She insisted that I had closed them and left them that way. Her friend Casey had come over to visit and while they were in the kitchen, my mother insisted I had shut the curtains. At that point, I couldn’t take it anymore and I lost it, yelling, “You’re lying!” She shot me a look and took me into the bathroom next to the TV room. She hit me uncontrollably all over my body. She slapped me, pushed me backwards and hit me on my chest, shouting, “How dare you say I’m a liar in front of my friend. You’re the pathological liar.” I was defeated, deflated, beaten and beaten down. Mia had stripped me of my voice and my sense of self. It was clear that if I stepped even slightly outside her carefully crafted reality, she would not tolerate it. It was an upbringing that made me, paradoxically, both fiercely loyal and obedient to her, as well as deeply afraid.
In short, it was not a happy home – or a healthy one. Which brings us back to August 4, 1992.
Strangers on Twitter pose me this question all the time: “You weren’t there to witness the assault, so how do you know it didn’t happen?” But how could anyone witness an assault if it never happened?
As the “man of the house” that day, I had promised to keep an eye out for any trouble, and I was doing just that. I remember where Woody sat in the TV room, and I can picture where Dylan and Satchel were. Not that everybody stayed glued to the same spot, but I deliberately made sure to note everyone’s coming and going. I do remember that Woody would leave the room on occasion, but never with Dylan. He would wander into another room to make a phone call, read the paper, use the bathroom, or step outside to get some air and walk around the large pond on the property.
Along with five kids, there were three adults in the house, all of whom had been told for months what a monster Woody was. None of us would have allowed Dylan to step away with Woody, even if he tried. Casey’s nanny, Alison, would later claim that she walked into the TV room and saw Woody kneeling on the floor with his head in Dylan’s lap on the couch. Really? With all of us in there? And if she had witnessed that, why wouldn’t she have said something immediately to our nanny Kristi? (I also remember some discussion of this act perhaps taking place on the staircase that led to Mia’s room. Again, this would have been in full view of anyone who entered the living room, assuming Woody managed to walk off with Dylan in the first place.) The narrative had to be changed since the only place for anyone to commit an act of depravity in private would have been in a small crawl space off my mother’s upstairs bedroom. By default, the attic became the scene of the alleged assault.
In her widely-circulated 2014 open letter in The New York Times, the adult Dylan suddenly seemed to remember every moment of the alleged assault, writing, “He told me to lay on my stomach and play with my brother’s electric train set. Then he sexually assaulted me. He talked to me while he did it, whispering that I was a good girl, that this was our secret, promising that we’d go to Paris and I’d be a star in his movies. I remember staring at that toy train, focusing on it as it traveled in its circle around the attic. To this day, I find it difficult to look at toy trains.”
It’s a precise and compelling narrative, but there’s a major problem: there was no electric train set in that attic. There was, in fact, no way for kids to play up there, even if we had wanted to. It was an unfinished crawl space, under a steeply-angled gabled roof, with exposed nails and floorboards, billows of fiberglass insulation, filled with mousetraps and droppings and stinking of mothballs, and crammed with trunks full of hand-me-down clothes and my mother’s old wardrobes.
The idea that the space could possibly have accommodated a functioning electric train set, circling around the attic, is ridiculous. One of my brothers did have an elaborate model train set, but it was set up in the boys’ room, a converted garage on the first floor. (Maybe that was the train set my sister thinks she remembers?) Now, whenever I hear Dylan making a public statement about what allegedly happened to her that day when she was barely seven, I can only think of that imaginary train set, which she never brought up during the original investigation or custody hearing. Did somebody suggest to the adult Dylan that such a specific detail would make her story more credible? Or does she really believe she remembers this train “circling around the attic” the same way she says she remembers Woody’s whispered promises of trips to Paris and movie stardom (kind of odd enticements to offer a 7-year-old, rather than a new toy or a doll)? And all this apparently took place while those of us who promised to have our eyes trained on Woody were downstairs, seemingly oblivious to what was happening right above our heads?
Eventually, my mother returned with Casey and her newest adoptees, Tam and baby Isaiah. There were no complaints by the nannies, and nothing odd about Dylan’s behavior. In fact, Woody and Mia went out to dinner that night. After dinner, they returned to Frog Hollow and Woody stayed over in a downstairs bedroom – with, apparently, no abnormal behavior by Dylan, and no negative reports from any of the grown-ups.
The next morning, Woody was still at the house. Before he left, I briefly wandered into the living room and witnessed Dylan and Satchel sitting with him on the floor by a wall with a big picture window. The kids had a catalogue from a toy store and were marking off the toys they wanted him to bring back on his next visit. It was a cheerful, playful atmosphere – which would soon seem jarring compared to what Mia would allege happened less than a day before. Many years later, I once mentioned my recollection to Woody, and he said that he, too, remembered it quite vividly, telling me how he had told Satchel and Dylan to mark one or two toys each, but they had laughingly managed to check off virtually every toy in the catalogue. He remembers bringing it back to the city with him, with the intention of purchasing a few of the items they had checked. He told me he wound up holding onto that catalogue for years, having no idea that he would never see his daughter again.
Interestingly, it was only after Woody returned to the city that Mia would receive a phone call that would change our lives forever. It was from her friend Casey, who reported that her nanny Alison had witnessed Woody supposedly placing his head in Dylan’s lap on the sofa in the TV room.
When Monica, our long-term nanny who was out that day, returned to work the next day, I confided to her that I thought the story was made up. Monica, who had been with us for six years, would quit her job a few months later, saying that Mia was pressuring her to take her side and support the accusation.
It was Monica who later testified that she saw Mia taping Dylan describe how Woody had supposedly touched her in the attic, saying it took Mia two or three days to make the recording. In her testimony she said, “I recall Ms. Farrow saying to Dylan at that time, ‘Dylan, what did daddy do... and what did he do next?’ Dylan appeared not to be interested, and Ms. Farrow would stop taping for a while and then continue.” I can vouch for this, having witnessed some of this process myself. When another one of Dylan’s therapists, Dr. Nancy Schultz, criticized the making of the video, and questioned the legitimacy of the content, she too, was fired immediately by Mia. (My mother, for whom “loyalty” was hugely important, would also fire another long-term caretaker, Mavis, claiming that she was making statements against her.)
During the custody hearing, my mother kept stressing how we needed to stick together as a family. Frightened and beaten down, I, too, played my part. I even wrote a letter condemning Woody, saying that he had done something horrible and unforgivable, and had broken my dreams. I even read the letter for the news media that were now regularly gathered at the end of our driveway, knowing that doing so would earn my mother’s approval. That public denouncement of my father remains the biggest regret of my life.
Later that year, I remember many meetings with lawyers and an evaluation I went to in New Jersey. I am naturally shy and kept quiet until I finally felt the need to speak up. I told the evaluator that I felt stuck between my parents. Afterwards, I returned to my school and my mother called, screaming. “Do you realize what you’ve done? You’ve destroyed my case! You need to call your lawyer and tell her you take back what you said, tell her that you recant your statements and want them stricken from the record.” I felt my stomach drop. When I next spoke to the lawyer, I repeated her words verbatim, “I take back what I said, I recant my statements and want them stricken from the record.” Again, the pattern held: I was forced to follow my mother’s script to prove my loyalty.
Even though she still lectured us about “staying together as a family,” at the beginning of my sophomore year of high school, my mother sent me to boarding school in Connecticut against my wishes. I objected that I wanted to stay in New York; she didn’t care. My usefulness in the family drama had played itself out. I had made my statement against my father, my role was done, and I was sent away.
At the time, of course, I knew nothing about the six-month criminal investigation conducted by the Child Sexual Abuse Clinic of the Yale/New Haven Hospital, ordered by the Connecticut state police. But since this allegation was renewed a few years ago, I’ve seen the results of that investigation. It specifically concluded that “Dylan was not abused by Mr. Allen,” that her statements had a “rehearsed quality” and that they were “likely coached or influenced by her mother.” Those conclusions perfectly match my own childhood experience: coaching, influencing, and rehearsing are three words that sum up exactly how my mother tried to raise us. I know that Dylan has recently referred to this brainwashing theory as “spin” by our father – but it was nothing of the sort. It was not only the conclusion reached by a state-ordered investigation, it was the reality of life in our household.
That report put an end to any chance of criminal charges being brought against my father. A second, 14-month investigation by the New York State Department of Social Services, reached the same conclusion as Yale/New Haven: “No credible evidence was found that [Dylan Farrow] has been abused or maltreated.” Nevertheless, when a judge granted custody of Satchel and Dylan to Mia, at 15, I chose the path of least resistance, and also stayed with my mother.
In my mid-twenties, shortly after I graduated from my master’s program, I felt that I wanted to reach out to Woody, and communicated this to Mia. I’ll never forget how happy I felt when I received her return email saying she would support it, understanding my need for a father figure. That happiness was short-lived. Less than 24 hours later, she reconsidered, and wrote back, saying that she forbade me from making contact with “that monster.”
Several years later, I became estranged from my mother, but it has taken years of self-reflection, professional help and support from those I love – and who love me in return – for me to appreciate the sad truth of my childhood and of what my mother did to my siblings and me. I am grateful to have awakened to the truth of what happened to us – but disappointed that it took me this long to get here.
Meanwhile, though, my father continues to face wave after wave of unfair and unrelenting attacks from my mother and her surrogates, questioning why he has been “given a pass” all these years. But Woody was not given a pass. Quite the opposite. Mia’s accusation was fully investigated by two separate agencies and charges were never brought. Mia reached the end of the legal runway after it was determined that the abuse never occurred. But trial by media thrives on the lack of long-term memory and Twitter requires neither knowledge nor restraint.
To those who have become convinced of my father’s guilt, I ask you to consider this: In this time of #MeToo, when so many movie heavyweights have faced dozens of accusations, my father has been accused of wrongdoing only once, by an enraged ex-partner during contentious custody negotiations. During almost 60 years in the public eye, not one other person has come forward to accuse him of even behaving badly on a date, or acting inappropriately in any professional situation, let alone molesting a child. As a trained professional, I know that child molestation is a compulsive sickness and deviation that demands repetition. Dylan was alone with Woody in his apartment countless times over the years without a hint of impropriety, yet some would have you believe that at the age of 56, he suddenly decided to become a child molester in a house full of hostile people ordered to watch him like a hawk.
To the actors who have worked with my father and have voiced regret for doing so: You have rushed to join the chorus of condemnation based on a discredited accusation for fear of not being on the “right” side of a major social movement. But rather than accept the hysteria of Twitter mobs, mindlessly repeating a story examined and discredited 25 years ago, please consider what I have to say. After all, I was there – in the house, in the room – and I know both my father and mother and what each is capable of a whole lot better than you.
To my sister Dylan: Like you, I believe in the power of speaking out. I have broken my silence about the abuse inflicted by our mother. My healing began only after getting away from her. And what she has done to you is unbearable. I wish you peace, and the wisdom to understand that devoting your life to helping our mother destroy our father’s reputation is unlikely to bring you closure in any kind of lasting way.
Finally, to my mother: One thing you always said you appreciated about me was my ability to listen. I listened to you for years and held your truth above all others. You once said to me, “It’s not healthy to hold onto anger.” Yet here we are, 26 years later. I’m guessing your next step will be to launch a campaign to discredit me for speaking out. I know it comes with the territory. And it’s a burden I am willing to bear.
But, after all this time, enough is enough. You and I both know the truth. And it’s time for this retribution to end.
I regarding Mia’s brother, John Farrow, who is a convicted child molestor, and whom she whose case she had never mentioned:
The Real Criminal in Mia Farrow’s Family: Her Brother, John, Serving 10 Years in Maryland Prison for Child Molestation
http://www.showbiz411.com/2017/12/09/the-real-criminal-in-mia-farrows-family-her-brother-john-serving-10-years-in-maryland-prison-for-child-molestation
Warm regards.
She must have been molested by parents or family member.
You might never know what it was but my family has major issues and it came out in religion that children were property and anything done to them was okay!
They could be killed sold or molested! Bearings were standard behavior.
Mia could have been part of that generation!
I missed it but has a father that was beaten down by his dad!
What you have written seems far more credible than anything Dylan has said (I believe she probably believes her falsehoods/is deluded) and explains things to me. eg Mia/Frank 21/50; Soon Yi/Woody 20/55. Mia and the Previns. Mia's unhealthy criticism of Woody to the children in the home and her treatment of Soon Yi before and after her relationship with Woody became public (if Soon Yi was a victim of abuse why didn't Mia act more caringly towards her daughter?) The suicides of Mia's children. Mia's family background re abuse. Mia's need to adopt so many children, especially those needier than most; why did she feel the need to do that? I come from a family of eight healthy children and my parents barely coped.I must also say that it seems pretty obvious to me that Ronan/Satchel is Frank Sinatra's biological son. He looks so like him now and nothing like Woody. Why is this (possible) lie ongoing in this day and age? Who is pushing it, Mia or Dylan?
I come from a family in which a depressed sister accused my father of sexual abuse based, I believe, on false memories. This came about after hospital therapists interpreted a 'vision' my sister had of a man coming towards her following a 're-birthing' at a New Age Festival. That accusation unleashed a toxic poison that has all but destroyed our family connections. I have been condemned for speaking up on my beliefs, it has cost me. But truth is important - be open to being persuaded otherwise, but ultimately stick to your beliefs.
Sincerely,
Lisa
And thank you for writing this.
Sorry for the pain you and your family has suffered. It is remarkable how you not only endured but, become an intelligent, caring and principled man.
#hugs
https://medium.com/@ewster/familiar-ideas-aef1124beeda
So often in my work I ask individuals to let go of the need to be righteous in their suffering, to be aware of the urge to project their pain. It is no easy task.
Wishing you and your loved ones privacy, peace and healing.
<3
That's rough. I've been following this story my whole life. I'd love to set up an interview. But good luck with continued health and happiness either way.
I hope more people take the time to read what you've written and think about the rush to judgement which your dad has endured.
Please make the text darker. I tried to print this in order to save it but it prints very light. Same thing when I try to save it as a PDF. This is so important -- it must be legible!
Yousry Nasrallah (Egyptian Film-Maker)
Selfishly, I have hoped for a very long time that you would write this piece and publish it. Yet in truth, no one has the right to expect such a sacrifice of you, least of all a random fan of your father's art.
But truth is truth, and despite everything, it still matters. On behalf of the millions who love truth and courage, thank you.
But the absolute most telling fact is that Woody Allen has never faced any other charge. The list of child molesters who commit a _single_ assault over 60 years is _zero_. It is an empty list. This is a claim at odds with everything we know about pedophilia.
I'm all in favor of punishing sexual crimes. The #meToo movement is long overdue.But look at all the dirtbags being brought down by #meToo: every one of them has multiple accusations. There is a reason for this.
"Believe the woman" means to take her accusations seriously enough to launch an investigation. It does not mean suspend common sense or trial by jury. Mia got two investigations. Enough is enough. Much of the damage of sexual assault comes from the aftermath, especially for small children. Mia has held onto and kept alive this aftermath, at Dylan's expense. That's the real crime here.
I have never believed for one second that your father Woody molested Dylan. I have always been horrified at the unrelenting and decades long commitment of your mother, to destroy Woody’s life, reputation and artistic legacy. It must be very difficult to expose these details of your life, and I admire your courage at defending the truth. I admire the work you have done to try to make sense of your childhood abuse and to help others as a therapist.
I too, suffered abuse as a child at the hands of my father-it sounds similar to what type you experienced.
I hope you continue to heal and I hope your sister Dylan is someday able to break free of the brainwashing and abuse she has suffered at the hands of her mother.
I always pause when I pass that building on Fifth Avenue that says, “Yee shall speak the truth and the truth shall set yee free”.
I was young at the highlight of your father’s career, but still a fan. I still get delight from watching his old movies and getting a laugh. I was one of “the public” who was surprised and taken back when the news broke of his relationship to your sister. Then when accusations of molestation came out I couldn’t believe it, but what did I know about the man’s private life? I considered the situation and was sad that it was no longer right to be a fan of such a person. Beyond that it didn’t really change my life. Unfortunately it affected yours greatly. You are very strong to come forward with this truth. I am just a bystander, just one of the crowd. I’m not sure it matters much, but I’m proud of you. You don’t know me and I don’t know you. I know my opinion doesn’t matter. Nonetheless my heart goes out to you. I hope your life from now on is a happy one with people who truly appreciate, care, and love you. Everyone deserves that much.
I guess you have made it ok to be a fan of your father again. More than that though, I’m a fan of you!
BTW, your dad also raped our sister/step-mother. No matter how you slice it, and irrespective that they're NOW married - what happened was a violation and is DISGUSTING. Any grown person who ends up having romantic/sexual feelings for another person is a vile person. Sad that you're blind to the ways of the world. I mean, clearly it's your reality so perhaps it's your "norm". But guess what, it's NOT normal and it's NOT okay.
I have nothing to do with anything here; I'm sorry you and your father have had to have been drawn out time and time again. I've always have felt that this has been unfair and wrong. And I'm embarrassed it's dragged all of you through the media time and time again.
But that situation with the tape measure is EXACTLY how this stuff manifests. Mine was a video camera and my wife and the weird thing is--because it's so weird and controlling for no reason--that we block it, hide from it, support and buy into it--and then it seems like it's too late and no one's going to understand anyway.
You're understood. And you're right and, boy-oh-boy, doesn't it feel great to get it off your chest?
Obviously, I don't know you or your father, nor will I ever meet either of you. I do know your mother (only in the sense that I've lived and loved someone with that horrible, acidic sickness). But I am a father. I know what it is to be a father. What you just did for your dad was everything a dad could ever want.
So, again, good job and God bless you, Moses Farrow.
you may be disappointed to not have spoken earlier, but I think that your story goes far beyond yourself.
Because you and your father are not alone. Today we are in the paradoxical situation where society gives mothers all means to take revenge upon their ex-partner, and the preferred way is to use the children, because there is nothing more effective to hurt a father than estranging their children from them.
I know your experiences, I know them well, both as a child like you, and also as a father like yours.
Unfortunately today we have a form of violence that is both invisible and accepted in our society. In order to see it it’s necessary to extend adult’s accountability from the physical to the psychological violence.
Of course rape and physical beatings are unacceptable, but too often psychological violence and abuse are accepted, and more women than men take advantage of it.
From my point of view, you, your brothers and sisters, have actually been raped psychologically by your mother, still the one who has to prove to not be a monster today is your father, while it is acceptable that a woman abuses their child and tries to ruin a man's reputation and career.
What happened in your family, happens in many others, where the usual outcome is that the fathers lose the right to see their child, no matter if they are the healthier part in the dispute.
Of course I am not saying that it’s always the mothers’ fault, I am just saying that after having experienced firsthand how manipulative and deceitful, yet convincing in the eyes of society, some women can be, every time I hear a story of a father who didn't care or abused his kids, I take it with a grain of salt, because you have to see both sides of the story before judging.
So this story, which authenticity can be doubted only by witless or hypocrites, goes far beyond yourself and is shared by many, many more than you can imagine.
Therefore…
BE PROUD OF YOURSELF, as I am proud of you as a child, for speaking up for me and all children.
BE PROUD OF YOURSELF, as I am proud of you as a father, for defending me and all fathers.
Thank you Moses, I would love to get in touch with you.
henry@triangulumtransport.com
Stay strong, and thanks for your testimony.
All the best.
Also was there an electrical outlet in the attic for an electric train set to operate?
I had also grown up in the industry, where so much was overlooked and allowed, and so little done to help those of us too young to understand or help ourselves. I find it so odd to have also been drawn to the realms of psychology to put my own pieces together and see the world as it really is, rather than we all wish it to be.
As we well know, there are always three sides to every story.
I, having made the study of human nature foremost in my life, wrestled with my own demons in an effort to raise my children in the opposite. Not creating roles for them in my own psychodrama, but rather providing the tools for them to create a life free of it.
If only more could.
So I am content knowing my truth without having to get her to admit she's lying. I KNOW what happened, and that's good enough for me. Because you can't change a narcissist (not saying which of your parents or even possibly both are narcissists--many people have both parents who have NPD). Narcs will always lie to make themselves look better. ALWAYS. It's incurable. So calling them out publicly will only bring their wrath against you.
I am sorry you ended up with the parents you did. I am also adopted. Makes me wonder why we get adopted into insanity like this.....doesn't anyone think to check up on us after all is said and done? *sigh* Well, for real. Just know your truth and let it all go. And distance yourself from anyone who would put you in the middle again.
Betrayal and attacks on our public image brings out the worst in us. We all want to look like " The good guy" and strive for unrealistic expectations. Unfortunately, there are those who derive pleasure from diminishing societie's positive role models out of jealousy.
From a distance I love and admire ALL of your family members for their progressive contributions to social commentary and the arts.
I would like to read a book by you that is NOT about your family.
Peace.✍️💜🎓🦋🌏
Michael Hollister
Boston, Ma.
May 24th 2028
Eric Solstein
That must have been painful to write. But since his other family member would not let go of it, Moses needed to correct the false accusations about Woody.
At some point family members become locked into a path of scapegoating. "The Identified Patient" where one family member is identified as the cause of all the problems, when in truth, it began (in this case and in other situations) much earlier than before he even came into the picture.
Your mother was nicer and less controlling than mine, but I "divorced" her years ago. She tried to implant sexual molestation stories about my grandmother, father, and stepfather, but I was older and more mature at that point, and recognized these stories as fantasy on her part.
Best wishes and I hope you have a good relationship with your father now.