Moses Farrow Writes Essay Defending Woody Allen and Accusing Mia Farrow of Abuse and Brainwashing
Zack Sharf
Moses Farrow, the adopted son of Woody Allen and Mia Farrow, has written a lengthy personal essay in which he defends his father against child molestation accusations made by Dylan Farrow, and accuses his mother of abusing and brainwashing him as a child. The essay, titled “A Son Speaks Out,” was published May 23 on Moses’ Blogspot page.
“I’m a very private person and not at all interested in public attention,” Moses writes. “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.”
Moses writes that living under Mia Farrow’s roof was “impossible if you didn’t do exactly what you were told, no matter how questionable the demand.” Moses was adopted from South Korea by Mia, and then adopted by Allen in 1991. He writes about an instance where Farrow hit him across the face after she discovered a tape measure on his bed that she was looking for all day. Moses had just finished first grade at the time.
“She asked why it was on my bed,” Moses writes. “I told her I didn’t know, that perhaps a workman had left it there…When I didn’t give the answer she wanted, she slapped my face, knocking off my glasses. Through my tears I listened to her as she explained that we would rehearse what should have happened. She would walk into the room and I would tell her I was sorry for taking the tape measure…She made me rehearse it at least a half-dozen times.”
Moses calls the encounter with the tape measure the “start of [Mia’s] coaching, drilling, scripting, and rehearsing – in essence, brainwashing.” He says he became “anxious and fearful” of his own mother. Moses writes about another story in which Mia spanked him after he decided to cut a couple of belt loops into his new pair of jeans. According to Moses, Mia responded by hitting him and forcing him to strip naked in front of his older siblings.
Moses also disputes Dylan Farrow’s child molestation claim against Woody Allen. Moses was 14 years old when Dylan’s accusation first went public. Dylan maintains to this day that Allen molested her when she was a child. Moses references Dylan’s New York Times article in which she described details about the alleged assault. Dylan wrote that the assault happened in the attic, where Allen told her to play with her brother’s electric train set while he molested her.
“There’s a major problem: there was no electric train set in that attic,” Moses writes, refuting Dylan’s accusation. “There was, in fact, no way for kids to play up there, even if we had wanted to. It was an unfinished crawl space, under a steeply-angled gabled roof, with exposed nails and floorboards…The idea that the space could possibly have accommodated a functioning electric train set, circling around the attic, is ridiculous.”
Dylan reacted to Moses’ essay in a statment to PEOPLE, saying, “[The essay is] 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.”
Moses works as a family therapist and photographer. IndieWire has reached out to representatives of Mia Farrow for further comment. You can read his entire “A Son Speaks Out” essay here.
