Brooklyn Heights Resident Lena Dunham’s Full Frontal Assault On Woody Allen

After the NY Times printed an open letter from Dylan Farrow claiming her adopted father Woody Allen molested her over 20 years ago, Brooklyn Heights resident/ “Girls” star Lena Dunham took to Twitter to express her thoughts on the issue.

Allen was defended by filmmaker Robert Weide in a Daily Beast article published last week – Dunham refers to it in her tweets below.

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  • Klezmer O’Brien

    Clarification: Allen did not marry his daughter. It is illegal to marry your daughter. He married the adopted daughter of Mia Farrow, who was his girlfriend, not his wife.

    That is…uh…unorthodox. But there is no law against it. She was of legal age. (And they are still married.)

    If you’re going to eviscerate the guy, at least get your facts straight.

  • GHB

    Jack Antonoff, why don’t you shut your pie-hole until all the facts come out. Many believe that Mia ingrained the molestation story into Dylan’s head since childhood, and Dylan’s brother Moses agrees.

  • neighboronhicks

    might not be illegal, but it’s still gross. i think most people would find marrying your former lover’s child (adopted or natural) is still a pretty smarmy violation of the social contract.

  • Klezmer O’Brien

    It’s not my business to approve or disapprove of somebody else’s private life…if it’s legal. I just object when people misstate the facts.

  • David on Middagh

    I suspect that, as was said of O. J. Simpson, Allen’s a guilty man who was framed. But it’s a mess, no doubt about that.

  • Elaine Leirer

    Woody Allen’s persona is a red flag for these accusations. It is devastating when a father figure to these children takes nasty photos of the child for whom he is the authority figure. Soon Yi. It is a baby step to assault Dylan .I admire the people who defend Allen, it is a tribute to our culture to defend what appears to be unproven actions. Just as in the O.J. case, there are fumbles on the part of prosecutors. We should be questioning ourselves as to what dysfunction would promote
    a genius level person to sink to this abusive level.

  • Klezmer O’Brien

    I don’t question myself at all – I had nothing to do with it.

    It is not a tribute to our culture to defend unproven actions – it’s the law of the land. Innocent until proven guilty. It is a basic pillar of American society.

    An allegation is not proof. It is just an allegation. An assertion, claim or contention. That’s all it is until somebody presents convincing evidence in a courtroom following basic rules and overseen by an impartial judge.

    As long as we’re on the topic, Mia Farrow is not the most conventional person on the face of the planet. She told Vanity Fair that she was cheating on Allen with her ex Frank Sinatra and her son Ronan may be his son – so at best, she was unfaithful. At worst, she’s exploiting her own child to call attention to herself and send another zinger at Woody.

    Mind you, I’m not defending his actions. I’m just saying, I don’t know what his actions were and neither do you.

  • Elaine Leirer

    Woody took compromising photos of Soon Yi, that is not an assertion, that is fact. Surely, even you, must admit that this is a sign of some dysfunction on Woody’s part and as most psychologists agree, a gateway to child abuse.

  • Klezmer O’Brien

    I never saw the pictures. Did you? If not, then how can we judge?

    The “victim” felt sufficiently good about him to marry him and stay with him for twenty years. That seems more like genuine affection than dysfunction.

    Are you a psychologist? How do you know what most psychologists agree?

  • Elaine Leirer

    It is obvious that you are young to this case. At the time when Dylan was 8 or nine there were a number of hearings and the photos were evidence at same. The matter of psychologist agreement is also a matter of record. The developmental issues of Soon Yi is also a matter of record. I point also to a comparable situ where men marry a designated victim as a public justification for their situation.

  • Klezmer O’Brien

    It is also obvious that you haven’t seen the pictures, aren’t a psychologist, are spewing whatever sensational prattle the media feeds you unquestioned.

    And the fact that she married him and remains married to him after two decades….I leave it to people to use their own common sense to figure out what it means.

  • Klezmer O’Brien

    So I take that to mean a) you have not seen the pictures and b) you are not a psychologist nor do you know most psychologists and what they agree or don’t disagree on.

    Woody Allen married Sun-Yi Previn in 1997, after a six year relationship. They have been married for about 17 years and together as a couple for about 23 years.

    Use your common sense to read into that what you will. What I read is a happy, successful relationship. People who are abused or mistreated divorce their spouses by the tens of thousands each and every day.

    Back to the facts:

    After extensive investigation, Woody Allen was never indicted for criminal behavior.

    A Connecticut prosecutor claimed there was probable cause for an indictment but he declined to indict. Subsequently, he was called out for grandstanding.

    Here are excerpts from a New York Times article entitled “Panel Criticizes Prosecutor in Inquiry on Woody Allen” published Feb. 24, 1994 and written by Richard Perez-Pena:

    “A Connecticut prosecutor’s handling of a child-molestation complaint was cause for ‘grave concern…'”

    “(It) amounted to a stern rebuke of the persecutor…a disciplinary panel has found.”

    “‘This amounts to a public reprimand…” said Kate Smith, a law professor at Yale University and former prosecutor. (The decision) was ‘quite damming.'”

    “Last March, a team of child-abuse specialists at Yale-New Haven Hospital, who were brought into the case by prosecutors and the police, concluded that Dylan had not been molested.”

    That is what the New York Times said 20 years ago.

    You don’t know what happened. I don’t know what happened.

    But what we do know is that the people who actually looked at the evidence and interviewed the accusers and the accused when the events in question were fresh in their minds determined that there was not enough evidence to hold a trial, let alone arrive at a conviction.

    There was no indictment. There was no trial.

    This is why the presumption of innocence exists along with the right to a public trial in which that evidence is presented according to rules.

    It’s also why you don’t throw people in jail because some bitter ex sends a nasty twitter feed.

    For all we know she’s enraged because her prolific acting career went down the drain as soon as Woody stopped putting her in his movies and using her adopted family to try and get back at him.

  • Elaine Leirer

    You are a myriad mass of your own conclusions.
    a) You are assuming that I have not been privy to the pictures
    b) You are assuming I have no mental health credentials
    You are discounting the emotional damage engendered by her early years.
    Because you are requesting statements from me and since you have not set forth your credentials or

  • Klezmer O’Brien

    Yes, that must be it.

    Unless…could it be possible…you just want attention?

  • Elaine Leirer

    Perhaps WE may need attention. You have ferreted out the cause of the debate. Clever of you.