In his new memoir, Woody Allen says he married his wife Soon-Yi Previn for purely financial reasons.
“As far as marriage was concerned, neither of us had any great need to formalize our relationship,” he writes in his book “Apropos of Nothing.” “We both felt that no contract is worth the paper it’s printed on if the parties are not happy. We loved each other and there was no need to resort to legislature. We would definitely not wed, and that was that. And then we married. Why? Not for romantic reasons but strictly financial.”
Pointing out the 35-year age gap between the pair, Allen, 84, continued, “I adored Soon-Yi and knew I was much older and could drop dead at a moment’s notice. If I did, I wanted her to be legally protected, to get all I owned automatically with no hitches.”
Allen and Previn, 49, decided to have a very quiet and private wedding in Venice, Italy in December 1997.
“As practical as our reason for marrying was, the wedding was very romantic,” he said, adding that the mayor was going to marry them secretly in an office and only in front of Allen’s sister and his close friend. Likening himself to James Bond, Allen explains that he left the hotel separately from Previn and took a gondola “through the canals and backwaters” to get to the wedding location.
After tying the knot in a secluded room, the couple also left separately, meeting back at the hotel by different routes.
“When we entered our suite the phone was ringing,” he writes. “It was Page Six from the Post. They’d heard we were in Venice and just got married. I looked under the bed before we consummated the marriage. We honeymooned two days later at the Ritz in Paris, and by then the secret had become headlines. Soon-Yi and I were husband and wife.”
He added, “It had little effect on the stock market, although Xanax went up ten points.”
Allen details his relationship with Previn — who is the adopted daughter of Allen’s ex-girlfriend Mia Farrow — throughout the memoir. He also dedicates it to her, writing, “For Soon-Yi, the best. I had her eating out of my hand and then I noticed my arm was missing.” He also addresses his tumultuous relationship with Farrow and accusations that he sexually abused Farrow’s daughter Dylan when she was 7 years old, which he has denied.
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