Ronan Farrow Excoriates Publisher Over Woody Allen Memoir, Immediately Severs Ties

Ronan Farrow has left his publisher, Hachette, after learning the company is preparing to publish a memoir by his estranged father, controversial filmmaker Woody Allen. In a statement released Tuesday, the Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter raked Hachette over the coals for secretly working with Allen on his book, Apropos of Nothing, while at the same time releasing Farrow’s book, Catch and Kill, which is about sexual predation in Hollywood.

“I was disappointed to learn through press reports that Hachette, my publisher, acquired Woody Allen’s memoir,” Farrow writes, “after other major publishers refused to do so and concealed the decision from me and its own employees while we were working on Catch and Kill—a book about how powerful men, including Woody Allen, avoid accountability for sexual abuse.”

Catch and Kill, released last year, is an account of Farrow’s reporting on convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein’s pattern of sexual abuse over the last few decades. (He repeatedly denied accusations of nonconsensual acts, but was found guilty on charges related to two accusers in March.) His book was released by the Hachette division Little, Brown and Company; Allen’s memoir will be released by the division Grand Central Publishing.

Farrow has been estranged from Allen for years, after his sister Dylan came forward accusing Allen of sexually molesting her as a child. She first went public with the claims in 2014, then reiterated the allegations in essays and interviews after the #MeToo movement gained steam in 2017. (Allen has vehemently denied the claims.)

In his statement about Hachette, Farrow noted that the publisher never reached out to Dylan to fact-check any of the details about her that could appear in Allen’s memoir. (A lack of fact-checking is a common, if controversial, practice in the publishing industry.)

“Hachette did not fact check the Woody Allen book,” Farrow wrote. “My sister Dylan has never been contacted to respond to any denial or mischaracterization of the abuse she suffered at the hands of Woody Allen—a credible allegation, maintained for almost three decades, backed up by contemporaneous accounts and evidence.”

In a statement released Monday, Dylan made a similar claim, noting she was never contacted by fact-checkers and calling the memoir news “an utter betrayal of my brother.”

“Hachette’s complicity in this should be called out for what it is and they should have to answer for it,” she added.

In addition to his public statement, Farrow also reportedly sent an email directly to Hachette chief executive Michael Pietsch, characterizing the decision to publish Allen’s book as a moral misstep and announcing his decision to immediately part ways with the company.

“Your policy of editorial independence among your imprints does not relieve you of your moral and professional obligations as the publisher of Catch and Kill, and as the leader of a company being asked to assist in efforts by abusive men to whitewash their crimes,” he wrote, according to the New York Times.

“Obviously I can’t in good conscience work with you any more,” he added. “Imagine this were your sister.”

When reached by the Times, Pietsch said he spoke to Farrow on Monday and told him that divisions at Hachette keep their releases separate from one another.

“We do not allow anyone’s publishing program to interfere with anyone else’s,” he said. He also added that Allen’s book will be “the complete story of his life, from the beginning to the present moment,” told in “Woody Allen’s unmistakable voice.”

In a statement released Monday, Grand Central Publishing announced Apropos of Nothing will be “a comprehensive account of [Allen’s] life, both personal and professional, and describes his work in films, theater, television, nightclubs, and print. Allen also writes of his relationships with family, friends, and the loves of his life.”