An upcoming memoir by Woody Allen is being criticized by two of his children, daughter Dylan Farrow and son, author-journalist Ronan Farrow.
Ronan has distanced himself from the publisher of his latest book, Catch and Kill after the company, Hachette, announced plans to publish Allen’s memoir titled, Apropos of Nothing.
Farrow said the move “shows a lack of ethics and compassion for victims of sexual abuse.”
“I was disappointed to learn through press reports that Hachette, my publisher, acquired Woody Allen’s memoir after other major publishers refused to do so and concealed the decision from me and its own employees while we were working on Catch and Kill — a book about how powerful men, including Woody Allen, avoid accountability for sexual abuse,” Ronan said in his statement.
He continued: “Hachette did not fact check the Woody Allen book. My sister Dylan has never been contacted to respond to any denial or mischaracterization of the abuse she suffered at the hands of Woody Allen — a credible allegation, maintained for almost three decades, backed up by contemporaneous accounts and evidence.”
“It’s wildly unprofessional in multiple obvious directions for Hachette to behave this way,” Ronan wrote. “But it also shows a lack of ethics and compassion for victims of sexual abuse, regardless of any personal connection or breach of trust here.”
He then “encouraged Hachette” to conduct “a thorough fact check” of Allen’s memoir “in particular any claim that implies my sister is not telling the truth.”
“I’ve also told Hachette that a publisher that would conduct itself in this way is one I can’t work with in good conscience,” Ronan concluded.
Dylan Farrow, who alleged Allen molested her as a child in the early 1990s, called the upcoming release “deeply upsetting.” Allen has denied any wrongdoing, and he was never charged after two separate investigations.
“Hachette’s publishing of Woody Allen’s memoir is deeply upsetting to me personally and an utter betrayal of my brother whose brave reporting, capitalized on by Hachette, gave voice to numerous survivors of sexual assault by powerful men,” Dylan said in a statement late Monday.
“For the record, I was never contacted by any fact checkers to verify the information in this ‘memoir,’ demonstrating an egregious abdication of Hachette’s most basic responsibility,” Dylan added.
She said that her story has “undergone endless scrutiny and has never been published without extensive fact checking.”
“This provides yet another example of the profound privilege that power, money, and notoriety afford.”
She said that Hachette’s “complicity in this should be called out for what it is and they should have to answer for it.”
Dylan also quoted her brother’s tweet, saying that she is “proud” of him and “his uncompromising integrity.”
Allen’s Apropos of Nothing is slated to be published on April 7 by Hachette’s Grand Central Publishing and it’s described as a “comprehensive account” of Allen’s life in which he “writes of his relationships with family, friends and the loves of his life.”
In an interview with the New York Times on Tuesday, Hachette CEO Michael Pietsch said that Ronan’s book and Allen’s book were published by different Hachette imprints.
“We do not allow anyone’s publishing program to interfere with anyone else’s,” he said.
“Each book has its own mission,” he said. “Our job as a publisher is to help the author achieve what they have set out to do in the creation of their book.”
“Grand Central publishing believes strongly that there’s a large audience that wants to hear the story of Woody Allen’s life as told by Woody Allen himself,” he said. “That’s what they’ve chosen to publish.”
Grand Central Publishing has not commented on the release of the memoir as of this writing.
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