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"I Never Read Anything About Me": Woody Allen Claims Ignorance After His Son Ronan Farrow's Takedown
By
Jen Chung
Published May 12, 2016
Modified May 12, 2016
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By
Jen Chung
Published May 12, 2016
Modified May 12, 2016
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At an "intimate" lunch celebrating the premiere of his new film Café Society at the Cannes Film Festival, Woody Allen spoke to a select group of film reporters. Inevitably, he addressed the scorching opinion piece that his son Ronan Farrow just penned for the Hollywood Reporter, which asserts his father did sexually abuse his sister Dylan Farrow. Allen explained he had nothing to say, "I never read anything about me."
Ronan Farrow's essay detailed how the media appeared to be complicit in allowing Allen to continue on without serious questioning about Dylan Farrow's insistence that he sexually assaulted her when she was a young child. So the few reporters who attended the lunch tried to remedy that.
Vulture's Kyle Buchanan wrote, "I sat at a table with Variety's Ramin Setoodeh and Vanity Fair's Julie Miller, among other reporters, and when Allen came to speak with us, it wasn't long before conversation turned to the controversy. Allen told Miller that he hasn't read Ronan Farrow's article."
"I never read anything about me," he demurred. "Any of these interviews I do, anything. I said everything I had to say about that whole issue in the New York Times, I don’t know if you read it, some time ago. I have moved so far past that. You know, I never think about it. I work, and that’s the end of it for me. I said I was never gonna comment on it again because I could just go on endlessly."
When Setoodeh asked him if he planned to read the article, Allen continued to hold his ground. "I never read anything," he said again. "I never read what you say about me, or the reviews of my films. I made the decision 35 years ago to never read a review of my movies, never read an interview, never read anything. Because you could easily become obsessed with yourself ... I’ve been very productive over the years by not thinking about myself, and not obsessing over myself."
"But this isn’t a critic," said Setoodeh. "It’s your son."
Allen shrugged. "I’ve said all I have to say about it."
Ronan Farrow had also detailed how many media organizations seemed to dismiss his sister's claims because they do not want to anger Allen's powerful publicist and lose access to the relatively reclusive filmmaker. And proving that point, the Hollywood Reporter was apparently prohibited from the luncheon: THR reached out to Dart to explain why she banned the publication from the event—she responded: 'It's only natural that I would show displeasure when the press — this case, The Hollywood Reporter — goes out of its way to be harmful to my client.'"
Tagged
cafe society
dylan farrow
ronan farrow
woody allen
Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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