Woody Allen, Soon-Yi Previn Call HBO’s ‘Allen v. Farrow’ a ‘Hatchet Job’

Woody Allen and his wife Soon-Yi Previn have issued a statement to the press through a spokesperson — Allen’s sister, producer Letty Aronson — in response to the HBO docuseries “Allen v. Farrow” that premiered Sunday. The program details his daughter Dylan Farrow’s allegations of abuse against the director, and includes in-depth interviews with her, Allen’s former partner Mia Farrow, and those who say they witnessed his behavior.

Allen and Previn claim the filmmakers — Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering — had “no interest in the truth” and were “surreptitiously collaborating” with the Farrows to do a “hatchet job riddled with falsehoods.”

In the four-part docuseries, which contains interviews with the Farrows as well as close family friends and experts, Dylan Farrow says that “for the longest time I’ve been trying to set the record straight… No matter what you think you know, it’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

While Allen and Previn’s spokesperson say the couple was given “days to respond,” “Allen v. Farrow” producer Amy Herdy told Variety that she started trying to make contact with Allen several years ago.

Herdy said she began reaching out to Allen’s then-publicist, Leslee Dart, in June 2018 to try to interview him for the series. “I reached out to his rep a few times to try and interview him then — and got crickets back,” she said. “I know they got my request, because I was able to get an assistant on the phone saying, ‘You are getting my emails, right?’ And she said yes. But they never responded.”

Allen and Previn’s full statement can be read below:

“These documentarians had no interest in the truth. Instead, they spent years surreptitiously collaborating with the Farrows and their enablers to put together a hatchet job riddled with falsehoods. Woody and Soon-Yi were approached less than two months ago and given only a matter of days ‘to respond.’ Of course, they declined to do so.

“As has been known for decades, these allegations are categorically false. Multiple agencies investigated them at the time and found that, whatever Dylan Farrow may have been led to believe, absolutely no abuse had ever taken place. It is sadly unsurprising that the network to air this is HBO – which has a standing production deal and business relationship with Ronan Farrow. While this shoddy hit piece may gain attention, it does not change the facts.”

Kate Aurthur contributed to this report.

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