Mia Farrow abused us, son reveals

The adopted son of Woody Allen and Mia Farrow has defended his father and said it was his mother, not the film director, who abused their children.

In a 4600-word essay on his blog, Moses Farrow, 40, accused his mother of ‘‘brainwashing’’ her large brood of biological and adopted children to slander their father.

He suggested that violent and cruel behaviour on her part had inflicted ‘‘fatal dysfunction’’ on the household and may have helped to drive two of his siblings to suicide and a third to a premature death from Aids-related causes after years of addiction.

‘‘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,’’ Farrow, a family therapist and photographer, wrote.

‘‘She even shut my brother Thaddeus, paraplegic from polio, in an outdoor shed overnight as punishment for a minor transgression.’’

In 2000, Moses’ blind sister, Tam, died at the age of 19 of what he said was a drug overdose after ‘‘one final fight with Mia’’. Eight years later another sister, Lark, 35, also died.

‘‘She wound up on a path of selfdestruction, struggled with addiction, and eventually died in poverty from Aidsrelated

Moses Farrow

causes,’’ he said.

Thaddeus, who was 27, shot himself dead two years ago.

‘‘I’m a very private person and not at all interested in public attention,’’ he added. ‘‘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.’’

For 25 years Allen has been dogged by claims that he molested Dylan Farrow, his adopted daughter, when she was seven years old.

The allegations emerged during the acrimonious custody battle fought between Allen and Farrow – who had been together for 12 years but never married or lived together – after the filmmaker left the actress in 1992 for Soon-Yi Previn, another of her adopted children.

Allen, now 82, has repeatedly denied the accusations and has never been charged over them.

A judge awarded full custody of the children to Farrow, now 73, and refused Allen rights to visit Dylan. In 2014 Dylan publicly alleged that her father had sexually abused her as a child.

In response, Allen wrote an op-ed article in saying that ‘‘of course’’ he had done no such thing, and airing the hope that ‘‘one day she will grasp how she has been cheated out of having a loving father and exploited by a mother more interested in her own festering anger than her daughter’s wellbeing’’.

In a statement to magazine Dylan called her brother’s blog post ‘‘an attempt to deflect from a credible allegation made by an adult woman by trying to impugn my mother, who has only ever been supportive of me and my siblings’’. She added that his essay was ‘‘beyond hurtful to me personally, and is part of a larger effort to discredit and distract from my assault’’. –