Over the weekend, Hollywood's most controversial couple Woody Allen and Soon-Yi Prever were spotted making a rare public appearance.
Joined by friends, the pair - who tied the knot in 1997 - enjoyed a meal at Wolfgang Puck's fine-dining restaurant Spago in Beverly Hills, where they were photographed by members of the press.
The outing marked the first time that the filmmaker, 89, and his other half, 54, have been seen in public since April of this year, which itself marked the first since September 2024.
It has long been rumoured that Allen and Soon-Yi's reluctance to step into the spotlight comes from the headline-hitting early days of their relationship (though neither party have ever confirmed this).
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For those in need of a reminder of the controversial courtship, Soon-Yi is the actor's third wife, following his short-lived marriages to Harlene Rosen and Louise Lasser.
What makes their romance such a hotly-debated topic, however, is that when the couple first met, Allen was dating his wife's mother, actress Mia Farrow, and had been for several years.
Farrow and Allen began publicly dating in 1978. At the time, the movie star already shared seven children with ex-husband André Previn.
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She and the composer welcomed three biological kids throughout the duration of their marriage, and adopted another four in 1978 - two daughters from Vietnam, and a son and daughter from Korea.
The youngest, Farrow's six-year-old daughter from Korea, was Soon-Yi.
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Despite the actress and Allen going on to welcome one biological son, Sachel, and adopt a daughter, Dylan, together in the years following her 1979 divorce from Previn, it was also around this time that an affair was struck between her new partner, and Soon-Yi.
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According to Soon-Yi, her relationship with Allen first became romantic when she began her freshman year as a student at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey in September 1991.
Despite the pair remaining rather vague on when, exactly, things became physical, they both agree that it was sometime after they began attending sports games together.
"It was 25 years ago," Soon-Yi previously told Vulture in 2018. "I think Woody went after me because at that first basketball game I turned out to be more interesting and amusing than he thought I’d be.
"Mia was always pounding into him what a loser I was."
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Allen also wrote in his autobiography Apropros of Nothing: "Cut to some time later, I'm shooting Husbands and Wives, Soon-Yi comes in from college and I screen The Seventh Seal.
"Bergman's film ends and we're alone in my screening room, and quite smoothly, if I do say so myself, I lean in and kiss her."
He went on to write: "She is complicit in the osculation and to the point, as always, says, 'I was wondering when you were going to make a move.'"
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Soon-Yi added of the same occasion: "We were like two magnets, very attracted to each other."
Claiming it was 'no justification', but she went on to tell the publication: "But Mia was never kind to me, never civil.
"And here was a chance for someone showing me affection and being nice to me, so of course I was thrilled and ran for it. I’d be a moron and an idiot, r*****d if I’d stayed with Mia."
Soon-Yi continued: "I wasn’t the one who went after Woody — where would I get the nerve? He pursued me.
"That’s why the relationship has worked: I felt valued. It’s quite flattering for me. He’s usually a meek person, and he took a big leap."
In 1992, Allen and Soon-Yi's romance was made public, after which the director was forced to respond to the resulting backlash.
"I am not Soon-Yi's father or stepfather," he said in an interview with Time Magazine that year, as per Salon. "I've never even lived with Mia.
"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."
Allen also told the New York Times the same year that he was 'in love' with the then 21-year-old, adding: "She's a lovely, intelligent, sensitive woman who has and continues to turn around my life in a wonderfully positive way."
She, in turn, told Newsweek she was far from abused during the early days of their romance, adding: "I’m not a retarded little underage flower who was raped, molested, and spoiled by some evil stepfather — not by a long shot."
Soon-Yi and Allen tied the knot in 1997, and went on to adopt two daughters together - Bechet, now 26, and Manzie, 25.
Her own mother, Farrow claimed in the 2021 docuseries Allen v. Farrow that she refuses to blame her daughter over the relationship.
"I love her so much and I didn't ever blame her, you know, because she was just a little kid when he came into the family," 80-year-old Farrow confessed. "She was a little girl. We were family and he was in my home as my partner and as such he had responsibilities.
"You don't get to have sex with my children. That isn't part of the deal."
Since then, the mother and daughter have remained estranged.
Rhianna Benson