Soon-Yi Previn, the wife of filmmaker Woody Allen, told Jeffrey Epstein in a 2018 email that the #MeToo movement “has gone too far,” according to correspondence unsealed last week. Previn, now 55, also directed blame at a 15-year-old girl involved in the Anthony Weiner sexting scandal rather than the former congressman in the same email chain. The disclosures are part of a growing tranche of documents from the Justice Department detailing Epstein’s private communications years after his 2008 conviction for procuring a minor.
Blaming the Weiner victim
The unsealed files show that Previn sent Epstein a September 2016 Daily Mail article describing how former Rep. Anthony Weiner had asked a girl who he knew to be 15 years old to send naked photos and engage in sexually explicit behavior for him online. After Epstein replied “Wow,” Previn responded, “I know,” before criticizing the teenager rather than Weiner, according to the email preserved in the records. “I also thought it was disgusting what the 15-year-old did to” Weiner, she wrote.
Previn continued by characterizing the minor as manipulative, writing, “I hate women who take advantage of guys and she is definitely one of them,” and asserting that the girl “knew exactly what she was doing and how vulnerable [Weiner] was and she reeled him in like fish to bait.” She concluded by calling the teenager “despicable and disgusting” and adding, “She should be ashamed of herself.” Weiner later pleaded guilty in May 2017 to federal charges of transferring obscene material to a minor and was sentenced to 21 months in prison.
During the fall of 2017 and early 2018, she also forwarded Epstein emails she had initially sent to herself, including one with the subject line “Just as the Me Too movement has gone too far so has Botox.” At the time, #MeToo reporting was driving criminal cases and professional fallout across entertainment and politics. Previn would continue emailing Epstein or his executive assistant months before his July 2019 arrest on federal sex trafficking charges.
Complicated family history
Before marrying Previn, Allen had been in a long-term romantic relationship with her adoptive mother, Mia Farrow, who adopted her at age 6 from South Korea with André Previn in the late 1970s. That family history has remained central to public scrutiny of Allen and those close to him since their relationship became public in the early 1990s.
The records also document Previn’s references to her half-brother Ronan Farrow, whose reporting on Harvey Weinstein helped propel the #MeToo movement. In September 2018, after Farrow won a share of the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting, Previn sent herself an email criticizing a New York Times Arts section item, writing that it gave him “too much prestige. More than he deserves.”
In another exchange included in the files, an agent for Allen forwarded Previn a Deadline article discussing Farrow’s reporting and NBC News’ earlier decision not to publish his Weinstein work. Previn then forwarded the agent’s message to Epstein without comment, according to the records. Those emails were sent during a period when Allen faced renewed scrutiny tied to sexual abuse allegations made by his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow, claims he has denied and that never resulted in criminal charges.
This story is part of The Rebel Yellow Newsletter — a bold weekly newsletter from the creators of NextShark, reclaiming our stories and celebrating Asian American voices.
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