I’m a victim of injustice, says Woody Allen in autobiography

Filmmaker again denies abusing daughter, saying claims were ‘Ahab-like’ bid for revenge by Mia Farrow

WOODY ALLEN has compared himself to literary greats Henry Miller, DH Lawrence and James Joyce, claiming he is an artist who has become a victim of “injustice” in his own country.

The filmmaker’s autobiography, Apropos of Nothing, was dropped earlier this month by publisher Hachette Book Group following an outcry from the Metoo movement.

However, it was published without fanfare yesterday by New York-based Arcade Publishing.

In the memoir Allen, 84, denies allegations by Dylan Farrow, his 34-yearold adopted daughter, that he molested her as a child.

Allen was never charged over the allegations after two separate investigations, but some actors have said that they won’t work with him again.

His most recent film A Rainy Day in New York did not come out in the United States, and Amazon ended a film deal with him.

In his 400-page book, Allen wrote: “I can’t deny that it plays into my poetic fantasies to be an artist whose work isn’t seen in his own country and is forced, because of injustice, to have his public abroad.

“Henry Miller comes to mind. DH Lawrence. James Joyce. I see myself standing among them defiantly.”

He added: “It’s about at that point my wife wakes me up and says, ‘You’re snoring.’”

Miller, the American novelist, had Tropic of Cancer banned in the US in the Thirties over sexual explicitness.

Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover was the basis of a major obscenity trial in the UK in 1960, three decades after it was first published.

Joyce’s Ulysses was not openly available in his native Ireland until the Sixties, decades after he wrote it.

In his memoir, Allen also said his relationship with Mia Farrow had essentially ended in the Nineties when he began dating Soon-yi Previn, her adopted daughter who was more than 30 years younger than him.

Allen dedicated the memoir to Soonyi, to whom he is now married.

He wrote: “At the very early stages of our new relationship, when lust reigns supreme ... we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. Sometimes, when the going got rough and I was maligned everywhere, I was asked if I had known the outcome, do I ever wish I never took up with Soon-yi? I always answered I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”

Allen has long denied sexually abusing Dylan. In the book, he claims the accusations arose from what he calls Mia’s “Ahab-like quest” for revenge over his relationship with Soon-yi.

He wrote: “I never laid a finger on Dylan, never did anything to her that could be even misconstrued as abusing her; it was a total fabrication from start

‘I was maligned everywhere. Do I ever wish I never took up with Soon-yi? I’d do it again in a heartbeat’

to finish.” Allen described a visit to Mia’s house in Connecticut in 1992, when he has been accused of molested Dylan. He acknowledged briefly placing his head on then seven-year-old Dylan’s lap.

Allen wrote: “I certainly didn’t do anything improper to her. I was in a room full of people watching TV midafternoon.”

Journalist Ronan Farrow, the son of Allen and Farrow, helped launch the Metoo movement by exposing the film mogul Harvey Weinstein. He is supportive of his sister.

Ronan had worked with Hachette on his book Catch and Kill and publicly criticised the publisher when it emerged it was also working with his father. In a postscript, Allen addressed the decision of Hachette to drop him. He claimed the publisher had vowed to go ahead despite his “being a toxic pariah and menace to society”.