Ronan Farrow has said his brother Moses Farrow’s defense of Woody Allen is part of a “smear campaign.”
Moses Farrow wrote in a lengthy blog post Wednesday saying that Allen, his adopted father, has been “condemned for a crime he did not commit.” Dylan Farrow, Allen’s adopted daughter with ex-girlfriend Mia Farrow, has said Allen sexually assaulted her in an attic at Mia Farrow’s Connecticut home on Aug. 4, 1992. Moses Farrow, whom Allen and Farrow also adopted, said he was at the house that day and that nothing happened.
Ronan Farrow took the side of his mother and sister in a Twitter post Thursday.
“Not worth saying much to dignify the repeated campaign to discredit my sister, often by attacking our mother. This happens every time Dylan speaks, so this is all I’ll offer: My mother did an extraordinary job raising us, and none of my siblings with whom I’ve spoken ever witnessed anything but love and care from a single mom who went through hell to keep her kids safe,” Ronan Farrow wrote.
All I’m going to say about efforts to deflect from my sister’s allegations: pic.twitter.com/IRrj5fzMqV
— Ronan Farrow (@RonanFarrow) May 24, 2018
His account conflicts with one described by Moses Farrow’s blog post, in which he said Mia Farrow abused him and at least once coached him to lie. He said he believes she also coached Dylan Farrow to lie about Allen, because she was furious that Allen began a relationship with another of her adopted children, Soon-Yi Previn, to whom Allen has now been married for more than two decades.
Ronan Farrow noted a 1990s court case in which Mia Farrow was granted custody of her children with Allen. (Allen has never been charged with abusing his daughter, and contends that Mia Farrow coached the girl to lie to gain advantage during their bitter custody fight.)
“After relentless legal scrutiny of my mother’s parenting — and efforts to discredit her — she was granted sole custody to protect us from Woody Allen,” Ronan Farrow wrote. “We all grew up with offers from him to speak out against our mother in exchange for support. (He made helping to pay for my college education contingent on turning against her and lying. I declined.)”
He added that Dylan Farrow’s accusation is “backed by a significant body of credible evidence, including physical evidence and eyewitnesses to abuse. I hesitated to speak on this only because I didn’t want to draw attention to a smear campaign that has been running since Dylan’s pediatrician first called the police almost 30 years ago. I believe my sister.”
Moses Farrow said in his blog post that both he and Ronan — then known as Satchel — were home on the day Allen is accused of assaulting Dylan. Satchel was four at the time, and Moses was 14. Moses Farrow wrote that he remembered all of then gathered in the TV room, watching “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” but that he never saw Allen go anywhere alone with Dylan.
Dylan Farrow has said Allen assaulted her in an attic within view of model train set, but Moses Farrow said the train set was not located in the attic, but rather in a boys’ room on another floor of the house.
In his statement, Ronan Farrow never refers to Woody Allen as his father. There has been speculation over the years, including by Allen and Mia Farrow, that Frank Sinatra, Mia Farrow’s ex, might be Ronan Farrow’s biological father.