Woody Allen has responded to his adoptive daughter Dylan Farrow's claims that he assaulted her as a child.The filmmaker has denied all of Dylan's allegations and said that the open letter she wrote making the claims was influenced by her mother, Mia Farrow."Of course, I did not molest Dylan," said 78-year-old Woody in an open letter posted online by The New York Times. "I loved her and hope one day she will grasp how she has been cheated out of having a loving father and exploited by a mother more interested in her own festering anger than her daughter's well-being."
In a letter published on 1 February Dylan claimed that Woody sexually abused her at the family's Connecticut home when she was seven years old.
Woody was taken to court and accused of "inappropriately touching" his adopted daughter, although the case was dropped. "Not that I doubt Dylan hasn't come to believe she's been molested," Woody added in his letter. "But if from the age of seven a vulnerable child is taught by a strong mother to hate her father because he is a monster who abused her, is it so inconceivable that after many years of this indoctrination the image of me Mia wanted to establish had taken root?"
"Now it's 21 years later and Dylan has come forward with the accusations that the Yale experts investigated and found false."
Woody and Mia ended their 12-year relationship after it was discovered that the director was having an affair with Mia's adopted daughter Soon-Yi Farrow Previn. "I still loved (Dylan) deeply, and felt guilty that by falling in love with Soon-Yi I had put her in the position of being used as a pawn for revenge," said Woody.
After Dylan's abuse claims came to light, her adoptive brother Moses spoke out in Woody's defence."Of course Woody did not molest my sister," he told PEOPLE. "She loved him and looked forward to seeing him when he would visit.""I don't know if my sister really believes she was molested or is trying to please her mother," he added. "Pleasing my mother was very powerful motivation because to be on her wrong side was horrible."