"Allen V. Farrow" Premiered Last Night — Here Are 23 Things We Learned From The First Episode
"For the longest time, I've been trying to set the record straight. Because no matter what you think you know, it's just the tip of the iceberg."
🚨This article details accounts of sexual assault and misconduct involving an adult and a minor. Reader discretion is advised.🚨
Last night, HBO Max premiered the first episode of Allen v. Farrow — a docuseries about the alleged assault that happened between Woody Allen and his adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow:
Going into the series, the only thing I really knew about these events was that Woody Allen married Soon-Yi Previn, the adopted daughter of his then-partner, Mia Farrow.
However, this docuseries reveals the dark underbelly of Woody's relationship with his adopted daughter, Dylan, and how it affected her growing up and their family as a whole. Here's everything we learned:
1. This is Mia Farrow's first time publicly speaking about Woody Allen in decades:
"It's my fault," Mia continued. "I brought this guy into our family."
2. Mia believes that one of the reasons it's been so hard for people to believe allegations against Woody Allen is because he's so loved in the film community due to the vulnerability he's known for showing on screen:
Claire Dederer, a journalist for The Paris Review, said in the doc that she "felt that [Woody Allen] represented [her], which is a very weird way for a little girl to feel about a middle-aged filmmaker. He has a way of inhabiting something very human that's very relatable."
3. Mia said that it was actually Michael Caine who introduced her to Woody Allen:
When Mia was working on Broadway, Michael Caine invited her to dinner after her show, and Woody Allen was at the same restaurant.
4. Mia talked about the early days of her and Woody Allen's relationship — she lived on one side of Central Park with her seven children, and he lived on the other side of Central Park:
Woody said he didn't want to be involved with the children at first, but when Mia purchased her family home in Connecticut, he'd visit more and more frequently until he became a more permanent fixture in their lives.
5. Moses — Mia's adopted son from Korea — particularly took a liking to Woody:
6. When Mia expressed the desire to conceive another child, she said that Woody would do it, but he didn't want to be "responsible" for the child. When they couldn't conceive, Mia turned to adoption, to which Woody responded: "Well, I might be more kindly disposed if it was a little blonde girl."
The next child Mia adopted was "a little blonde girl" named Dylan.
7. From early on, people noticed the "intensity" Woody Allen had for Dylan:
Mia's son, Fletcher, recounted how Dylan once left a teddy bear in a hotel room on their European vacation and Woody paid for a first-class ticket to bring the bear back to Dylan. Even in his own memoir, Apropos of Nothing, Woody recounted how Dylan became obsessed with The Wizard of Oz and he had the costume department of the film he was working on stay up all night to make her a pair of ruby red slippers.
8. Mia later became pregnant, and Woody was "disappointed" when he found out that they would be having a boy and not a girl.
Satchel's [soon-to-be known as Ronan] birth had been a difficult one — Mia had to have a Cesarean section. Not long after he was born, Woody would take Dylan away from Mia because he thought she wanted to spend all her time with Ronan; she would cry after him and say, "Don't take Dylan away."
9. Dylan recounted being taken away from Mia "even when [she] didn't want to" leave the room. Dylan also remembered Woody instilling the idea that Mia was "more Ronan's parent" and he was more of her parent:
"Like, I was Daddy's girl, you know?"
10. Dylan and Ronan — who're only two years apart — were very close growing up. The two both said they were practically "inseparable":
In case you didn't know, Ronan is an investigative journalist and the author of Catch and Kill, which recounts his journey of reporting on Harvey Weinstein's sexual assault allegations and the lead up to the #MeToo movement.
11. Mia and Dylan both remember that, eventually, Woody would only want to see Dylan and none of the other kids:
"It was so one-track," Mia remembered.
12. "I was always in his clutches," Dylan realized. "He was always hunting me."
Dylan shared a story about going to a friend's house to play and noticing, while they were in her room with their dolls, that her dad wasn't in there watching them and "hovering," because her only frame of reference was Woody Allen constantly being in her shadow.
13. Around this time, Dylan would routinely ask family friend Priscilla Gilman — who was dating Mia's son, Matthew Previn, at the time — to hide her from Woody Allen or insist that she and Ronan keep playing so she didn't have to leave and go with Woody:
14. Dylan shared one of the earliest memories of her alleged abuse at the hands of Woody Allen:
I have memories of getting into bed with him. He was in his underwear, and I'm in my underwear, cuddling. I remember his breath on me. He would just wrap his body around me — very intimately.
15. Mia remembers catching Woody allegedly resting his head in Dylan's lap and thinking "that wasn't right":
16. When Dylan was 5, she began seeing a therapist due to being "shy, withdrawn, and very fearful." During therapy, she allegedly told her therapist she had a secret, but this was never mentioned to Mia:
17. Tisa Farrow — Mia's sister — shared a troubling incident she witnessed between Dylan and Woody Allen:
"Mia handed Woody a thing of sunscreen to put on, and he was rubbing Dylan's back...His hand went down between her buttocks and kind of lingered there, and suggestively — I have to say suggestively because that's what it was — went between her buttocks cheeks with his finger and then came back. Mia saw it, too, and snatched the sunscreen away."
18. Dylan recounted a memory of abuse that involved Woody "teaching her how to suck his thumb," and that's all I'm going to say about that because it makes me sick to my stomach:
At the time of the event, Dylan would have been between the ages of 5 and 6.
19. When Mia raised her concerns about how Woody was "handling" Dylan to him, he immediately went on the defensive and said that she was the one who needed to get help:
"I wanted to believe that he was not capable of what I feared," Mia continued. "You know, what I was seeing."
20. Mia said the floodgates opened when Dr. Ethel Persons, a well-known and respected NYC therapist, told Mia that she witnessed concerning behavior between Woody and Dylan:
21. Soon after this incident, Woody began seeing a therapist, who said that the "behavior was inappropriate, but not sexual":
Mia remembered the therapist telling her, "It could be perceived as sexual by others, by [her], and even by the child. But it wasn't sexual. It was just that he had never been around children, and that it was his way of expressing affection, and that he must learn how to behave with a child."
22. After spending some time in therapy, Woody said he wanted to adopt Dylan and Moses — so he's now their adoptive father as well as the biological father of Ronan:
The other children remained in the sole custody of Mia's.
23. A year after the adoption, in 1992, Mia was at Woody's apartment when she found "pornographic pictures" of Soon-Yi:
"They wouldn't put them in Playboy...[they were like] Hustler pictures or something. Really, really, raunchy pictures."
That's everything we learned in Episode 1. Tune in next week for the recap of Episode 2.
Also, if you, or anyone you know, is the victim of sexual assault or abuse, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to www.rainn.org for more information.