Mia Farrow didn’t want her daughter Dylan Farrow to go public with her allegations of sexual abuse against her adopted father Woody Allen.
Dylan published an open letter in The New York Times in 2014, claiming that Allen molested her in an attic when she was just seven and accused Hollywood of turning a "blind eye".
In December 2017, Dylan penned a piece for The Los Angeles Times in the wake of the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements which swept Hollywood following the accusations of sexual assault made against Harvey Weinstein, questioning why Allen had seemingly been forgotten about by the industry’s powerful voices and had enjoyed a successful career despite the allegations being brought against him in the early 1990s.
Allen, 82, and his supporters had always maintained that the abuse allegations had been invented by Mia and Dylan as a warped revenge campaign against him because he fell in love with and married Soon-Yi Previn – the adopted daughter of Mia and her second husband Andre Previn. He also claimed the pair had "cynically" used the opportunity afforded by the two awareness movements to "repeat this discredited allegation".
As she attended the 2018 Time 100 Gala in New York City on Tuesday night (24.04.18), Mia, 73, revealed that she wanted Dylan to stay silent on the matter for her own self-preservation.
The ‘Death on the Nile’ star said: "I just wanted it all to go away. I did not want to resurrect … it was a horrible chapter for all of us, but I also understood and respected that she needed to do that and she wanted to be part of the #MeToo movement and have her voice heard."
Explaining her concerns about Dylan writing the articles, she added: "I heard my voice saying, ‘I’m so proud of you, you’re so brave,’ and my stomach knew to turn over because I knew that a lot of bad people will come at me. But I’m just so proud of her."
Although Dylan has called for actors writers to stop working with director Allen due to her allegations, Mia insists she has no strong feelings on the matter.
She said: "It’s up to the individual. It doesn’t affect me one way or the other … I think I would if it was a dear friend, I don’t think a dear friend would do that because they would know what the family has been through … but for other people I just don’t expect that they know or care."
Mia was at the event to see her son Ronan was honored at the gala as one of Time’s 100 for his journalism work exposing Weinstein’s sexual misconduct.
Mia Farrow wanted Dylan to stay silent on Woody Allen accusations
