Woody Allen Responds To Ronan Farrow’s Essay At Cannes Film Festival: ‘I Said Everything I Had To Say’

Filmmaker Woody Allen has responded to estranged son Ronan Farrow’s essay likening Allen to disgraced comedian Bill Cosby. Farrow said the media didn’t pursue sexual assault allegations against Allen with fervor and purposefully correlated the release of the Hollywood Reporter article with the premiere of Allen’s new flick, “Café Society,” which debuted Wednesday at the Cannes Film Festival in France.

Allen’s comeback to Farrow? He said didn’t even read the essay.

“I never read anything about me, these interviews I do, anything,” Allen, 80, told Vanity Fair.

“I said everything I had to say about that whole issue in the New York Times,” Allen added, referencing a February 2014 open letter he wrote for the Times in response to an open letter that adopted daughter Dylan Farrow had written, claiming the director had sexually assaulted her as a child.

Allen, who has long denied the allegations, isn’t concerned about the content of Farrow’s letter, and he doesn’t care about the possible effect it might have on the box office success of his movies. “I never read what you say about me or the reviews of my film. I made the decision, I think five years ago, never to read a review of my movies,” he said. “I’ve been very productive over the years by not thinking about myself. I don’t like to hear that a critic thinks my film is a masterpiece, and I don’t like to hear that a critic thinks my film misses.”

That might work for Allen, but Ronan Farrow didn’t write the piece so his estranged father would read it. It was for the media and the entertainment industry.

Farrow, 28, commended the media for making progress when it comes to journalists asking beloved figures hard-hitting questions, but he said there was still room for improvement. “There are more reporters than ever showing that courage, and more outlets supporting them. Many are of a new generation, freed from the years of access journalism that can accrete around older publications,” he wrote. “But the old-school media’s slow evolution has helped to create a culture of impunity and silence.”

Farrow slammed Hollywood celebrities, specifically Miley Cyrus, who work with Allen — and then tell Farrow it isn’t personal. “Personal is exactly what it is — for my sister, and for women everywhere with allegations of sexual assault that have never been vindicated by a conviction,” he wrote.

Charges were never brought against Allen. He maintains his innocence.

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