Moses Farrow Resurfaces to Defend Woody Allen, Accuse Mia Farrow of Abuse

He’s giving a new side to an old story. Moses Farrow — one of the many adopted children of Mia Farrow — has come forward, accusing his famous mother of child abuse while insisting that Woody Allen (who raised him like a father, though he technically never adopted Moses) is innocent and never molested daughter Dylan Farrow.

In the harrowing account, Moses, 40, accused his mother of abuse, claiming that he and his siblings were “brainwashed” while living under what he believes to be his mother’s toxic roof. In his public plea for his father’s innocence, he specifically referenced a 2014 New York Times piece by his sister, in which she recalls specific details of the assault that took place in 1992. “When I was seven years old, Woody Allen took me by the hand and led me into a dim, closet-like attic on the second floor of our house. He told me to lay on my stomach and play with my brother’s electric train set,” she recalled to the Times. “Then he sexually assaulted me.”

In his rebuttal, Moses — who has long been estranged from his sister Dylan — argued the logistics of fitting a train set in what he described as a crawl space. “It’s a precise and compelling narrative, but there’s a major problem: There was no electric train set in that attic,” he wrote. “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, gabbled roof, with exposed nails and floorboads, billows of fiberglass insulation, filled with mousetraps and droppings and stinking of mothballs, and crammed with trunks full of hand-me-down clothes and my mother’s old wardrobes.”

Woody Allen with Dylan in 1989.

He continued, “The idea that the space could possibly have accommodated a functioning electric train set, circling around the attic, is ridiculous.” He added that prior to the incident, all nannies and older children were told to keep their distance from the famed actor considering news of his relationship with Soon-Yi, Mia’s daughter, had just become public. Even with these advanced warnings, when his mother returned, he said, “there were no complaints by the nannies, and nothing odd about Dylan’s behavior.”

Moses has made it clear time and time again that he supports Woody Allen, and he encouraged people to consider the fact that the only time the 82-year-old has been accused of misconduct was by Mia, in the middle of a contentious custody battle. He explained, “During almost 60 years in the public eye, not one other person has come forward to accuse him of even behaving badly on a date, or acting inappropriately in any professional situation, let alone molesting a child.”

In light of Moses’ public support for his father — at the cost of accusing his mother of physical and mental abuse — Ronan Farrow (the only biological child of Mia and Woody) has come forward to express support for his sister. “Not worth saying much to dignify the repeated campaign to discredit my sister, often by attacking our mother,” he said via Twitter.

“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. Our brother Moses said the same thing in statements dating back many years. 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. 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.) My sister’s allegation 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.”