Warning: This article contains discussion of child abuse which some readers may find distressing.
Woody Allen has spoken out about how he felt about being cancelled after being accused of sexually abusing his ex Mia Farrow's daughter.
The 89-year-old recently filmmaker appeared on Bill Maher's Club Random podcast, where he spoke about that time of his life.
Allen is no stranger to controversy, and one of his biggest to date was when he and 54-year-old Soon-Yi went public with their relationship.
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Soon-Yi is the adopted daughter of Farrow, who was dating Allen for multiple years when she was a little girl. Farrow went on to adopt a little girl from Texas, Dylan Farrow.
Allen began having a romantic relationship with Soon-Yi when she was in college, as per their statements - despite what Farrow believes.
They said they first sensed a closer connection during a soccer game.
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Allen claimed in his autobiography, A propos of Nothing, that it was supposed to be a casual fling.
"I thought it would be a nice experience and Soon-Yi would eventually meet some guy at college and enter a more conventional relationship. I didn't realise how attached to one another we'd already grown," he said.
However, by 1992, their relationship became public and the backlash began.
In response, Allen said in an interview with Time Magazine, as per Salon: "I am not Soon-Yi's father or stepfather," adding: "I've never even lived with Mia.
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"I've never in my entire life slept at Mia's apartment, and I never even used to go over there until my children came along seven years ago. I never had any family dinners over there. I was not a father to her adopted kids in any sense of the word."
But there was another controversy soon to come after his relationship with Soon-Yi was known.
It was alleged by Dylan that he had molested her when she was seven years old.
The allegation came in 1992, when soon after Farrow learned of his romance with Soon-Yi.
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"You were a victim of overexcesses of the #MeToo movement and wokeness and a lot of inconsistencies," Maher said on the podcast episode.
The filmmaker has maintained his innocence, calling the allegations 'an unconscionable and gruesomely damaging manipulation of innocent children for vindictive and self-serving motives'.
The claims were investigated and dismissed by a New York judge during a custody case in 1993.
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Dylan has since repeated the allegations in 2013 and 2021, and told Vulture in 2018: "Thanks to my mother, I grew up in a wonderful home."
Even though the case was dismissed, Allen’s reputation plummeted.
In 2021, Farrow, Dylan, and Allen and Farrow's son Ronan Farrow were seen in a documentary called Allen v. Farrow, where told her story publicly first time.
Allen has since called himself ‘lucky’.
"Because that could be ruinous depending - when everything happened. I was much older, I had done 45 movies already," he said. "I had made enough money so I could retire for life comfortably."
He added: "I was thinking even, I only want to make a few more movies and then I would like to start to write books and plays. And so it happened to me at a time when it was no problem. If it had happened when I was 25 or 30, you know."
If anything, he found the whole cancellation of his career 'amusing', telling Maher: "I didn't have any real practical problems," Allen admitted. "It amused me because it didn't have any, as a practical thing. It was not hurtful to me."
He went on to say: "I was in my 80s and I had made so many movies and I, you know, it didn't matter, it didn't hurt me.”
However, he felt ‘disillusioned’ with the justice system while being investigated for the allegations.
He said: "You're shocked because most people don't find themselves in a situation in a courtroom ... and people are perjuring themselves one after the other, and you think, 'Well, isn't this against the law?' But you find out that it isn't exactly what you think — that yes, it's against the law technically, but nobody does anything about it."
Calling it 'very interesting and amusing... in many ways’, he said: "And only because, as I said, I had done so many movies and had accumulated enough personal financial resources, so that I wasn't hurt by it. But if I was 40 or 50 or 30 or something, it would have been very, very painful."
If you’ve been affected by any of these issues and want to speak to someone in confidence regarding the welfare of a child, contact the NSPCC on 0808 800 5000, 10am-8pm Monday to Friday. If you are a child seeking advice and support, call Childline for free on 0800 1111, 24/7.
Britt Jones