Inside Moses Farrow's Defense Of Woody Allen, Accusations Against Mia Farrow

On Wednesday, Moses Farrow, adopted son of Mia Farrow and Woody Allen, published a lengthy blog post defending his father and leveling new bombshell accusations against his mother. The post, which weighs in at almost 4,700 words, details the Farrow family history as well as Moses' recollection of the events on August 4, 1992, the day Allen allegedly molested daughter Dylan Farrow. Along the way, Moses levels a number of bombshell accusations and indictments.

"Now that the public hysteria of earlier this year has died down a little and I have some hope that the truth can get a fair hearing, I want to share my story," Moses writes in the introduction.

About halfway through the post, Moses delves into the Farrow family history. Movie icon Mia is part of a Hollywood legacy — her father was director John Farrow, whom Moses claims was a "notorious drinker." According to a 2006 profile of Mia in The Guardian, John met Mia's mother, actress Maureen O'Sullivan, while on a date with Dolores Del Rio. Farrow herself called her father "a womanizer of legendary proportions" in her autobiography What Falls Away. Farrow also claimed in the biography that, following the death of her 19-year-old brother Michael Farrow in 1958, both her parents started drinking heavily.

"There were numerous alcohol-fueled arguments between [Mia's] parents, and Mia told me that she was the victim of attempted molestation within her own family," Moses writes in his post. This is the first known mention of possible molestation in Mia's own childhood. Refinery29 has reached out to representation for Mia for comment.

Moses connects this molestation to a number of tragedies in the Farrow family. Mia's brother John, Moses points out, himself pleaded guilty to sexual abuse of minors in 2012. Her younger brother Patrick died by suicide in 2009. Moses also brings up Dory Previn, who had a psychiatric episode on an airplane after her husband Andre Previn left her for Mia in 1969. Following her institutionalization, Previn wrote a song about Farrow entitled "Beware of Young Girls." (The podcast You Must Remember This covered this specific detail in Farrow's history.)

"It’s easy to see the seeds of dysfunction that would flourish within our own home," Moses writes.

Moses has claimed before that Mia was an emotionally abusive mother. In 2014, Woody Allen wrote in an op-ed for the New York Times that Moses, aged 14, said, "My mother drummed it into me to hate my father for tearing apart the family and sexually molesting my sister." Allen also included the following alleged quote from Moses, "Knowing that my mother often used us as pawns, I cannot trust anything that is said or written from anyone in the family."

In his new blog post, Moses claims that Mia abused not just him, but a number of his siblings. Mia has eleven children, four of whom are biological.

"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," Moses recounts. "She even shut my brother Thaddeus, paraplegic from polio, in an outdoor shed overnight as punishment for a minor transgression." Thaddeus died by suicide in September 2016.

Additionally, Moses claims that his sister Tam Farrow didn't die of heart failure, as reported at the time of her death in 2000, but also died by suicide.

"One afternoon in 2000, after one final fight with Mia, which ended with my mother leaving the house, Tam committed suicide by overdosing on pills. My mother would tell others that the drug overdose was accidental, saying that Tam, who was blind, didn’t know which pills she was taking," Moses claims. " But Tam had both an ironclad memory and sense of spatial recognition. And, of course, blindness didn’t impair her ability to count."

Mia adopted Soon-Yi Previn in 1978, when Mia was still married to composer André Previn. In 1991, when Soon-Yi was in college, she began a relationship with Woody Allen, her mother's longtime boyfriend. Naturally, Soon-Yi's romance with the director obliterated her relationship with her mother Mia. But Moses claims in his blog post that their relationship was fraught was before then.

"Soon-Yi was [Mia's] most frequent scapegoat," Moses writes of his childhood. "My sister had an independent streak and, of all of us, was the least intimidated by Mia. When pushed, she would call our mother out on her behavior and ugly arguments would ensue." Moses describes two separate incidents of abuse: one where Mia threw a porcelain centerpiece at Soon-Yi, and another where Mia hit Soon-Yi with a telephone receiver.

"Soon-Yi’s made it clear that her desire was simply to be left alone, which increasingly became the case," Moses says.

Moses was at the family home in Bridgewater, Connecticut when Woody Allen allegedly assaulted a then 7-year-old Dylan Farrow. Moses claims that, as the eldest boy present, he kept an eye on everyone in the room. There were a lot of people present: Satchel (now Ronan) Farrow, the three children of Casey Pascal, a longtime friend of Mia's, Pascal's nanny Alison Strickland, the Farrows' nanny Kristine Groteke, and the Farrows' French tutor, Sophie. At this point, Mia Farrow had already found the compromising photos of Soon-Yi in Allen's home. He was, according to Moses, already verboten in their home.

" I remember where Woody sat in the TV room, and I can picture where Dylan and Satchel were. Not that everybody stayed glued to the same spot, but I deliberately made sure to note everyone’s coming and going. I do remember that Woody would leave the room on occasion, but never with Dylan. He would wander into another room to make a phone call, read the paper, use the bathroom, or step outside to get some air and walk around the large pond on the property," Moses writes.

He continues, "Along with five kids, there were three adults in the house, all of whom had been told for months what a monster Woody was. None of us would have allowed Dylan to step away with Woody, even if he tried."

Moses also works to discredit Dylan's account of the incident in the New York Times via a detail not many would have noticed. In Dylan's essay, she claims she stared at an electric train set while Allen molested her. "I remember staring at that toy train, focusing on it as it traveled in its circle around the attic. To this day, I find it difficult to look at toy trains," Dylan wrote.

Moses claims there was no electric train in the small attic room where the alleged assault occurred. "Now, whenever I hear Dylan making a public statement about what allegedly happened to her that day when she was barely seven, I can only think of that imaginary train set, which she never brought up during the original investigation or custody hearing," Moses says.

In 1992, Allison Strickland, Casey Pascal's nanny, told Mia that she witnessed Woody Allen with his head in Dylan's lap. Her account places the scene of the assault in the TV room of the home, not the attic crawl space where Dylan claims it occurred.

"I got to the doorway, and Mr. Allen was on his knees in front of Dylan, with his head in her lap," Strickland told the New York State Supreme Court during testimony. She brought this information to Casey Pascal, who then brought it to Mia.

Moses questions her account in his blog post, asking why she didn't immediately say something to Groteke, the Farrows' nanny. Groteke is the source present who claims she later noticed Dylan wasn't wearing any underwear. (Groteke also wrote a book about her experience as their nanny.)

There's also the matter of the nanny Monica Thompson, whom Moses implies quit after Mia pressured her to support the charges of abuse. Thompson apparently wasn't present at the Connecticut home on August 4, and Moses claims he told her he thought the story was false. Thompson was also the one responsible for the shadow of doubt cast on Dylan's recounting of the event, which Mia caught on tape.

"When Monica, our long-term nanny who was out that day, returned to work the next day, I confided to her that I thought the story was made up. Monica, who had been with us for six years, would quit her job a few months later, saying that Mia was pressuring her to take her side and support the accusation," Moses writes. "It was Monica who later testified that she saw Mia taping Dylan describe how Woody had supposedly touched her in the attic, saying it took Mia two or three days to make the recording."

According to the LA Times, Allen paid Thompson's $40k salary.

During the deposition, Thompson also accused Mia of "setting the scene" for Dylan's accusations. "For several weeks, Ms. Farrow insisted that Mr. Allen not be left alone with Dylan and wanted me to be with them at all times," Thompson stated. A 2014 Vanity Fair article by Maureen Orth states that this is indeed true — because Allen was in therapy regarding his previous interactions with Dylan, which had allegedly been inappropriate. For a 2013 article, Orth did extensive research into the Farrows' history, and has spoken to a number of the Farrow children. Moses did not speak to her for her research.

Moses also claims that Mia manipulated him into being on "her side." There was "coaching, drilling, scripting, and rehearsing." This meant, Moses writes, more abuse from Mia.

"I became anxious and fearful. Once, when I was given a new pair of jeans, I thought they would look cool if I cut off a couple of the belt loops. When Mia saw what I had done, she spanked me repeatedly and had me remove all my clothing, saying, 'You’re not deserving of any clothes' and making me stand naked in the corner of her room, in front of my older siblings who had just returned from dinner with their father André."

Moses alleges that, in another incident, Mia hit Moses for calling her a liar in front of Casey Pascal. The lie, in this case, was small: Moses claims Mia and he disagreed on who had shut the curtains in the TV room.

After Harvey Weinstein’s ousting in the fall and the subsequent explosion of the #MeToo movement, Woody Allen had a second reckoning. Dylan Farrow published an opinion editorial in the LA Times asking why the movement had yet to affect Allen. Following her op-ed, a number of actors declared they would never work with him again. Some donated their salaries to Time’s Up. Amazon is reportedly re-thinking its current relationship with Allen. Moses’ blog post doesn’t just accuse Mia of abuse: It also accuses the people involved in the current Allen coup of being motivated by fear.

“To the actors who have worked with my father and have voiced regret for doing so: You have rushed to join the chorus of condemnation based on a discredited accusation for fear of not being on the ‘right’ side of a major social movement,” Moses writes.

Dylan Farrow and Ronan Farrow have already responded to Moses’ accusations. In a statement provided to People, Dylan said, “[Moses' essay is] 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. It’s easily disproven, contradicts years of his own statements, is beyond hurtful to me personally, and is part of a larger effort to discredit and distract from my assault... My brother is a troubled person. I’m so sorry he’s doing this.”

Ronan provided a statement on Twitter denying Moses' accusations leveled against Mia. Read his full statement, below.