An open letter by Dylan Farrow – renewing child molestation charges against Woody Allen

In February 2014, Dylan Farrow — daughter of Mia Farrow and Woody Allen — published an open letter describing years of alleged sexual abuse beginning when she was seven years old. The allegations had been reported extensively in the early 1990s, but this was the first time Dylan Farrow herself spoke in her own words, on Nicholas Kristof's New York Times blog.

The letter was timed to the Golden Globes, where Woody Allen had just received a lifetime achievement award — a celebration, she wrote, she wanted no part in. Her words were pointed at the people who knew her as a child:

"What if it had been your child, Cate Blanchett? Louis CK? Alec Baldwin? What if it had been you, Emma Stone? Or you, Scarlett Johansson? You knew me when I was a little girl, Diane Keaton. Have you forgotten me?"

"Woody Allen is a living testament to the way our society fails the survivors of sexual assault and abuse."

"So imagine your seven-year-old daughter being led into an attic by Woody Allen. Imagine she spends a lifetime stricken with nausea at the mention of his name. Imagine a world that celebrates her tormenter."

"Are you imagining that? Now, what's your favorite Woody Allen movie?"

The other side of the record

Woody Allen has consistently denied the allegations. His attorney Elkan Abramowitz responded in 2014: "It is tragic that after 20 years a story engineered by a vengeful lover resurfaces after it was fully vetted and rejected by independent authorities. The one to blame for Dylan's distress is neither Dylan nor Woody Allen." (Fox News, 2014)

The 1992 investigation remains contested ground. Dr. John Leventhal, who led the investigation for the Connecticut State Police, told the New York Times in 1993 that his team "had two hypotheses: one, that these were statements that were made by an emotionally disturbed child and then became fixed in her mind. And the other hypothesis was that she was coached or influenced by her mother. We did not come to a firm conclusion. We think that it was probably a combination."

No charges were ever filed, and the facts remain disputed by everyone directly involved. Whatever the truth of the 1992 case, Dylan Farrow — 28 at the time of the letter and happily married — spoke for herself in 2014, and Hollywood could no longer pretend the question had gone away.