Woody Allen addresses Dylan Farrow allegations in first US TV interview in three decades

Woody Allen has sat down for an in-depth interview to address allegations he molested his adoptive daughter, where he made a surprising statement.

Woody Allen has spoken out about the allegations against him as well as his relationship with wife Soon-Yi Previn in a newly released interview.

The embattled filmmaker, 85, spoke with CBS Sunday Morning in July of 2020 for his first in-depth, on-camera interview in the US in nearly three decades.

Despite filming many months ago, the interview debuted on the Paramount+ streaming service on Monday, just two weeks after the conclusion of HBO’s documentary Allen v. Farrow, which streams locally on Foxtel.

In the interview, Allen directly addresses the allegations brought against him by his adoptive daughter, Dylan Farrow, who claims that he molested her when she was 7 years old.

Although he has denied that there is any truth to these claims, Allen told CBS’ Lee Cowan that he doesn’t think Dylan is lying.

“I believe she thinks it,” Allen says (via Deadline). “She was a good kid. I do not believe that she’s making it up. I don’t believe she’s lying. I believe she believes that.”

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Mia Farrow and Dylan Farrow. Picture: Neilson Barnard/Getty Images North America/AFP

Woody Allen sat down with CBS for his first US TV interview in three decades. Picture: CBS

Allen has implied in the past that Dylan may have been misled to believe something happened that he says didn’t, since Dylan’s claims came amid a heated custody battle with his ex-girlfriend Mia Farrow in 1992.

“It’s so preposterous, and yet the smear has remained,” Allen says in the interview.

“And they still prefer to cling to, if not the notion that I molested Dylan, the possibility that I molested her.

“Nothing that I ever did with Dylan in my life could be misconstrued as that.”

He continues: “There was no logic to it, on the face of it. Why would a guy who’s 57 years old and never accused of anything in my life, I’m suddenly going to drive up in the middle of a contentious custody fight at Mia’s country home (with) a 7-year-old girl. It just – on the surface, I didn’t think it required any investigation, even.”

Allen admitted that he would like to have a conversation with Dylan about the topic but noted that he hasn’t spoken to her in many years.

The filmmaker went on to discuss actors like Colin Firth, Timothee Chalamet and Kate Winslet, who have distanced themselves from him after working with him in the past given the renewed attention placed on the allegations, calling them “well-meaning but foolish.”

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Allen called out Kate Winslet for distancing herself from him. The actress starred as Ginny in Woody Allen’s 2017 film, WONDER WHEEL.

“All they’re doing is, they’re persecuting a perfectly innocent person and they’re enabling this lie,” he said (via Yahoo Entertainment).

The lengthy interview also discussed Allen’s controversial relationship with Previn.

The duo met when Soon-Yi was the adoptive daughter of Mia Farrow and began a relationship despite their 35-year age difference.

RELATED: Inside the mysterious lives of Woody Allen and Soon-Yi’s daughters

Woody Allen and Soon-Yi Previn. Picture: Michael Loccisano/Getty Images for Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week

“I would say, the many women I’ve dated in my life — many women — they were all what the appropriate police would call appropriate, age-appropriate,” he explained.

“Diane Keaton, Mia Farrow, (second wife), Louise Lasser, my first wife … until Soon-Yi, which is unusual for me.

“If you had told me that I was going to wind up married — happily married — to an Asian woman, much younger than me, not in show business, I would have said, ‘Well, the odds of that are very slim. I don’t think you’re going to be right.’ But that’s what happened.”

He acknowledged that the circumstances with which they met were unusual, but noted that their relationship came together in a less scandalous way than people think.

“I never slept at Mia’s house in all the years I went out with her,” Allen told Cowan.

“We had a relationship but there was never gonna be a marital relationship … It got to be a relationship of convenience after a while.”

He noted that “the last thing in the world that anybody wanted was to hurt anybody’s feelings.”

Allen also acknowledged that Mia finding nude pictures of Soon-Yi in Allen’s possession was not the way he wanted everyone to find out.

The topic was heavily covered in Allen V. Farrow, which Allen and Previn previously called a “hatchet job riddled with falsehoods.”

This story originally appeared on Fox News and has been reproduced here with permission