The 89-year-old film director has been married to his wife for almost three decades and has opened up about their relationship
Woody Allen has revealed some details about his life with his “much younger” wife, Soon-Yi Previn, who he has been married to since 1997. The 89-year-old met his wife while he was dating her mother Mia Farrow.
While promoting his new book, What’s with Baum?, the film director had a lot to say about Soon-Yi, 54. He described her as a “wonderful mother”, “larger-than-life personality” and “the social and cultural driver in the marriage”. He also revealed that he never thought he would be “married to a girl much younger than me”.
“If anyone had told me years ago that I would be married to a girl much younger than me with no background in New York or none of the similar interests growing up and that she’d be a Korean orphan, I would have said, ‘No chance. I’m going to be married to a New York actress,'” Woody said in an interview. “But it didn’t work out that way.”
Woody and Soon-Yi got married in December 1997, when Woody was 62 and Soon-Yi was 27, just a year older than their eldest daughter, Bechet, is now. When they first started dating, Woody was in a relationship with Soon-Yi’s mother, Mia Farrow.
He and Mia started dating in 1980, when Soon-Yi, who Mia adopted with her former husband Andre Previn, was 10. Woody and Mia adopted two children, Dylan and Moses, and had another child together, Ronan. In 1991, Mia learned that her daughter and her partner were having an affair. Soon after, it was alleged that Woody had sexually abused his adoptive daughter, Dylan. He strongly denies this.
The long-standing allegations that both Mia and Dylan have repeated were examined in the HBO documentary Allen v Farrow. Its explosive content includes a never-before-seen 1992 home video shot by Mia, 76, in which Dylan, seven at the time, describes how Allen allegedly “touched her private parts”.
Both Woody and Soon-Yi blasted the documentary, stating that: “These documentarians had no interest in the truth. Instead, they spent years surreptitiously collaborating with the Farrows and their enablers to put together a hatchet job riddled with falsehoods.
“As has been known for decades, these allegations are categorically false. Multiple agencies investigated and found that, whatever Dylan may have been led to believe, absolutely no abuse had ever taken place.”
They went on to claim they were given “only days” to respond to the series, but producer Amy Herdy insisted she reached out. “I reached out a few times to try and interview him and got crickets [silence] back.”
Dylan’s widely reported claim has not resulted in criminal action against Woody, who has accused Mia of “relentlessly coaching” his daughter into thinking he was a “dangerous sexual predator”. Woody has also stated he believes Mia is driven by fury at his relationship with Soon-Yi.
If you are 18 or under and have been affected by this story, you can contact Childline, confidentially on 0800 1111. You can also contact the NSPCC Helpline by phoning 0808 800 500 or emailing [email protected]. If a child is in immediate danger, call 999.
If you’ve been the victim of sexual assault, you can access help and resources via www.rapecrisis.org.uk or calling the national telephone helpline on 0808 802 9999
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