A bitter Woody Allen blasts his ex-girlfriend Mia Farrow for her “Ahab-like quest” to destroy him with sex abuse allegations and describes his romance with his current wife, Soon-Yi Previn, in graphic terms in his new memoir.
“At the very early stages of our new relationship, when lust reigns supreme … we couldn’t keep our hands off each other,” Allen writes of Previn in “Apropos of Nothing,” which came out Monday to little fanfare.
The book had originally been set to be put out by Hachette, but it was dropped after mass protests by employees, who were angry that the company would publish Allen, who has been accused of sexually abusing Farrow’s daughter Dylan.
In the book, which was put out by Arcade Publishing, the Oscar-winning director says he became embroiled in a romance with Previn in 1991, while he was still with her mother, Mia Farrow, with whom he has four kids.
Allen said he and Mia Farrow were basically apart by the time he began dating her adopted daughter, who is 35 years younger than he.
He recalled the day Farrow learned of the affair after discovering erotic photographs of her 20-something daughter at Allen’s apartment.
“Of course I understand her shock, her dismay, her rage, everything,” he said. “It was the correct reaction.”
But he also expressed no regret.
“Sometimes, when the going got rough and I was maligned everywhere, I was asked if I had known the outcome, do I ever wish I never took up with Soon-Yi? I always answered I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
He even shows how much affection he has for Previn, dedicating the book to her with the words: “For Soon-Yi, the best. I had her eating out of my hand and then I noticed my arm was missing.”
Allen was with Farrow for more than a decade, and recalled happy times with the “very, very beautiful” actress.
Their feelings cooled, however, especially after the 1987 birth of their one biological children, Ronan Farrow.
Ronan Farrow has been outspoken about his father, who he alleges sexually abused his sister Dylan, Allen’s adopted daughter.
Allen has long denied sexually abusing Dylan, and in the book, he speculated that the accusations arose from what he calls Mia Farrow’s “Ahab-like quest” for revenge.
“I never laid a finger on Dylan, never did anything to her that could be even misconstrued as abusing her; it was a total fabrication from start to finish,” he wrote.
Describing a visit to Mia Farrow’s Connecticut house in August 1992, when he allegedly molested Dylan, he acknowledged briefly placing his head on his then-7-year-old daughter’s lap.
“I certainly didn’t do anything improper to her. I was in a room full of people watching TV mid-afternoon,” he said.
Allen was never charged after two separate investigations in the 1990s.
Dylan has continued to say in recent years that she was abused.
Ellen Page and Greta Gerwig are among the actors who have said they won’t work with Allen again, and his most recent movie, “A Rainy Day in New York,” never came out in the US.
Amazon, which was to release that movie and three others, ended its deal with Allen. Allen sued and an out-of-court settlement reportedly was reached.
Grand Central Publishing said it would release Allen’s book on April 7. But the news was met with outrage from Ronan Farrow, who shared the Pulitzer Prize with the New York Times for his New Yorker investigation into Harvey Weinstein.
He was furious to learn that Allen’s book was being published by Hachette Book Group, the same parent company that released his tome “Catch and Kill.”
As The Post reported, Hachette employees staged a walkout, prompting Hachette to scrap the book. The book has now been published by Arcade publishers.
Stephen King was among those questioning the decision as an infringement of free speech, writing on Twitter: “It’s who gets muzzled next that worries me.”
Allen wrote, “When actual flak did arrive they thoughtfully reassessed their position” and “dumped the book like it was a hunk of Xenon 135.”
Arcade editor Jeannette Seaver said in a statement: “In this strange time, when truth is too often dismissed as ‘fake news,’ we as publishers prefer to give voice to a respected artist, rather than bow to those determined to silence him.”
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