“Woody Allen Married His Daughter,” The Unconventional Story of the Filmmaker and the Woman Who Has Been His Wife for More Than 20 Years

It was the scandal of the decade! The tabloids reported that Woody Allen had started a relationship “with his daughter.” In the midst of the shock, there was Mia Farrow, who had been the filmmaker’s partner and the mother of the young girl. But what really happened between them all, and what ties really bind them? The details could leave many with their mouths open.

It was in the late 1970s when Woody Allen and Mia Farrow began their relationship and became one of the most mediatic and powerful couples of the time. Farrow had just ended her marriage to musician André Previn, with whom she had adopted a little girl from South Korea — her name was Soon-Yi. During the twelve years that the actress and the director shared, they enlarged the family by adopting two more children. Then, in 1987, Satchel Ronan, the only biological child of their union, was born.

As their professional relationship grew stronger thanks to the thirteen films they shot together, their emotional bond slowly cooled. No one imagined the media fight that was brewing between the two.

In the early 1990s, Woody and Soon-Yi’s relationship took a different turn. At first, their plans were innocent, such as going to games or visiting cinemas and museums, with Mia’s knowledge and consent, but they soon moved to a more intimate level.

In early 1992, the scandal exploded right in front of Mia’s eyes. One day, the actress found photos of her daughter in the filmmaker’s apartment. The actress stated, “It was a package of intimate photos of a woman, of a girl. I took them and realized they were all of Soon-Yi. They were of my daughter.”

However, she chose to remain silent and spent part of her year planning the legal struggle she would wage against her partner. In the middle of that same year, Farrow accused Allen of attempting to inappropriately touch Dylan, her other adopted daughter, and put the girl’s testimony into evidence. In response, the filmmaker sued her and asked for custody of all the children they shared, while making public his relationship with Soon-Yi, who had already left home and was living with him.

By the middle of the following year, several experts dismissed the girl’s testimony as “inconsistent,” as she had given a different version on each cross-examination. On June 8, 1993, a judge attempted to bring order to the side-by-side attacks with his ruling — he awarded custody of the children to Mia, dismissed charges of improper access to Dylan for lack of evidence, and limited Allen’s visitation with the little ones. The only thing that seemed to be going well in his personal life was his relationship with Soon-Yi, whom he married four years later.

The couple made their union official on December 22, 1997, in Venice and with their marriage, a new stage began for the filmmaker. By then, he was 61 years old and she was 26. Since then, the young woman has dedicated herself to being a full-time wife and housewife.

As the years passed in their relationship, they decided to become parents, so they chose to adopt two girls, Bechet Dumaine Allen and Manzie Tio Allen, who are now adults but have stayed away from the spotlight and the media.

Over the years, Allen has been dedicated to defending and validating his relationship with his wife. In an interview, the filmmaker stated, “I started the relationship and thought it wouldn’t be serious, just be a fling. But it had a life of its own. We began going together, then living together and were enjoying it. I’m 35 years older and somehow the dynamic worked.
I was paternal. She responded to someone paternal. I liked her youth and her energy. She deferred to me, and I was happy to give her an enormous amount of decision-making and let her take charge of so many things. She flourished.”

For the director, however, being paternal and considering himself her father were very different things.

Therefore, it is very common to hear people say that “Woody Allen married his daughter,” but, according to Soon-Yi herself, she never saw Woody as a father since he did not live in the house with them.

She once said, “We didn’t see him as a father. He didn’t leave clothes in our house, not even a toothbrush.” And everything seems to indicate that their choices were the right ones because, more than 30 years later, they continue to show themselves as a strong, stable, and lasting couple.