Soon-Yi: Mia a nightmare, Allen a dream
Soon-Yi Previn has become the latest soldier in the longstanding, venomous war of words between Woody Allen and his estranged one-time partner Mia Farrow.
Previn entered the fray in a lengthy article published Sunday by New York magazine, leaving little room for misinterpretation about her animosity toward her adoptive mom Farrow and her love for Allen.
The 47-year-old notoriously private adopted daughter of Mia Farrow opened up about her controversial marriage to the filmmaker, saying she was “completely attracted to him, physically and sexually.”
Previn, who was adopted from South Korea by Farrow and her then-husband composer Andre Previn at age 6, also revealed that she and her mother got along “like oil and water” and alleged that the actress had abused her.
She first met the reclusive actor when she was 10, and he was introduced to the children as Farrow’s boyfriend, she said in a rare interview.
“Woody wasn’t interested in meeting us children. And the feeling was mutual; we weren’t interested in meeting him,” Previn told the writer, who is a friend of Allen’s. “I hated him because he was with my mother, and I didn’t understand why anyone could be with such a nasty, mean person. I thought he must be the same way.”
More than a decade later, during Previn’s first semester at Drew University in New Jersey, their relationship, which Allen called a “fling,” became sexual.
Allen and Farrow broke up in 1992, when he and Soon-Yi became a couple. The two married in 1997.
Speaking of her childhood, she recalls Farrow slapping her across the face and spanking her with a hairbrush and once throwing a porcelain rabbit at her. “Mia used to write words on my arm, which was humiliating, so I’d always wear longsleeved shirts,” Previn said.