WOODY ALLEN

Diane Keaton Discusses Being Called Out by Dylan Farrow in Woody Allen Open Letter

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Ever since Dylan Farrow published an open letter in The New York Times, detailing the alleged sexual abuse she claims she faced at the hands of her adoptive father, Woody Allen, when she was a child, Diane Keaton—Allen’s one-time girlfriend, former co-star, and Annie Hall muse—has remained unwaveringly supportive of the filmmaker, even going so far as to literally sing about their friendship, when presenting him with an honorary Golden Globe, in March.

But in a new interview with The Guardian, the actress speaks publicly, for the first time, about how she felt being singled out by Farrow in the open letter. (Farrow wrote, “What if it had been your child, Cate Blanchett? Louis C.K.? Alec Baldwin? What if it had been you, Emma Stone? Or you, Scarlett Johansson? You knew me when I was a little girl, Diane Keaton. Have you forgotten me?”) When asked whether the mention stung her at all, Keaton answers, “Not really.”

Her full answer, per The Guardian:

I saw her maybe three times. I didn’t know her. It’s not a bad accusation. I was never friends with Mia—I was friendly. Sort of like I’m friendly with you. I like you, I like the way you are. I like the way she is, too. She’s very charming. But I never knew her as a friend. A friend—that’s a commitment. It’s as close as you can get to family, and sometimes it’s even closer. Friendship requires a lot of time. I don’t have a lot of friends; I have acquaintances and people I think are charming, and I like to see them. I like to see Sarah Jessica Parker, I like to see Meryl Streep. I don’t know them—I mean, I made a movie with them, once, and that’s nice—but I know nothing about their lives.”

When The Guardian pointedly asks about Farrow’s insinuation that she “publicly defended someone who molested her,” Keaton responds, “I have nothing to say about that. Except: I believe my friend.”

Friendship is an issue that the actress seems to take seriously. In her Proust Questionnaire for Vanity Fair this month, the actress notes that if there is one thing she could change about her family, it would be “to include friends as family.”

Related: Mia Farrow and Eight of Her Children Speak Out on Their Lives, Frank Sinatra, and the Scandals They’ve Endured