Soon-Yi Previn, the wife of the film director Woody Allen, sent emails to Jeffrey Epstein telling the convicted sex offender that the #MeToo justice movement “went too far” – and smearing an underage girl at the center of a sexting case as “pathetic and disgusting” rather than the former US congressman who went to the illegal release of the government.
At one point, Previn also wrote about how her brother Ronan Farrow received more “prestige … than he deserves” in a New York Times article published months after his reporting on Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced movie mogul and now convicted sex offender, won a share of the Pulitzer prize and launched the #MeToo movement.
Those documents emerged as part of Friday’s so-called Epstein files, which built on earlier partial disclosures and were released by the US justice department in connection with a congressional transparency law. They also emerged as the complicated history of Previn in the eyes of the public looms.
Many, including Farrow, accused Allen, 90, of marrying Previn, 55, after they dumped her in her youth while they were dating her mother – although the couple said she was an adult when their relationship became romantic.
Related: Newly released Jeffrey Epstein files: 10 highlights so far
Previn and Allen were among the many notable figures who maintained friendship with the late Epstein even years after the wealthy financier had pleaded guilty in Florida state court in 2008 to procuring minors for prostitution. The new files, and those previously released, are full of communications surrounding the social gatherings — even detailing how Epstein once gave them genetic testing kits.
And, the new files also show, Previn sent emails to Epstein or his executive assistant as late as fall 2018, less than a year before officials say he died by suicide while in federal custody awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.
Among the millions of the most recent Epstein files are numerous messages addressed to or from Allen or the film producer’s assistant. However some messages that are perhaps the most striking are those involving Previn, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
She for example forwarded a September 2016 Daily Mail article to Epstein about how former Congressman Anthony Weiner had texted a 15-year-old girl asking her to undress for him and engage in rape fantasies. The article had sparked another scandal for Weiner, whose political career had already declined when he was previously caught sexting young women while he was still married.
“Wow,” Epstein replied to Previn.
“I know,” Previn replied, before adding, “I also thought it was disgusting what the 15-year-old did to” Weiner.
“I hate women who take advantage of guys and she is definitely one of them. She knew exactly what she was doing and how vulnerable [Weiner] she was and she cut him like a bait fish,” Previn said of the boy at the center of the case. “What is her excuse for being a despicable and disgusting person who preys on the [weak]?”
She concluded the ordeal with: “So manipulative of her. She should be ashamed of herself.”
Weiner subsequently pleaded guilty in May 2017 to federal charges of transferring obscene material to a minor and was to serve a year and nine months in prison.
For a period beginning in the fall of 2017, the files show, Previn wrote about the #MeTooMovement as well as Farrow to Epstein — and in one case to herself.
An agent for Allen sent Previn a Deadline article following her brother’s explosive reporting of various rape allegations against Weinstein in the New Yorker. The Deadline article recounted how an NBC News executive told staff that Farrow had previously done reporting on Weinstein for the network that it decided not to publish — but that it was different from the bombshell that the New Yorker released to effectively kick the #MeToo movement into high gear.
Allen’s agent wrote to Previn, “Now he’s probably done at NBC,” where Farrow had worked for three years starting in 2014. Previn then forwarded the agent’s email to Epstein without comment.
Then, in early 2018, Previn sent Epstein an email she had initially sent herself with the subject line “Just as the Me Too movement has gone too far so has Botox.”
About eight months after that, after Farrow had won part of that year’s investigative reporting Pulitzer, Previn would send herself another email, the Epstein files show Friday. Its subject line read: “I thought this was funny in the Arts section of today’s New York Times.”
The body of the September 19, 2018 message read, in part, “Gives too much prestige to Ronan Farrow. More than he deserves.”
It is not clear from the files to which the Previn article referred. But around that time, the Times Arts section published an article about how the previous night’s Emmy awards mostly avoided mentioning #MeToo, with one exception being when co-host Colin Jost joked that the scariest words to a network executive he could hear were “Sir, Ronan Farrow is on the front line.”
Federal authorities arrested Epstein on sex trafficking charges in July 2019, during the first presidency of his former friend Donald Trump. About a month later, officials say, he died in a federal prison in Manhattan.
The circumstances of Previn’s marriage to Allen have long been scrutinized. Actor Mia Farrow and her then-husband Andre Previn adopted Soon-Yi from South Korea when she was six. Mia Farrow, Ronan’s mother, divorced Andre Previn and then started seeing Allen when Soon-Yi was 11 years old. The couple said that Allen and Soon-Yi Previn’s romantic relationship began when she was 21 years old – while he was still dating her mother.
A 2021 HBO documentary explored allegations that Allen sexually assaulted his daughter Dylan in 1992. Both he and Previn responded to the Allen v Farrow documentary with a statement saying “these allegations are categorically false” as well as alluding to how they had never resulted in criminal charges.
Interest in the federal government’s handling of the case against Epstein increased after Trump promised to release a full list of the late’s clients while successfully campaigning for a second term in 2024. However, after taking office in early 2025, Trump’s justice department caused a bipartisan uproar by declaring that no such list exists.
The president later sought to relieve some of the political pressure he invited on himself by signing a congressional bill ordering his justice department to release more of Epstein’s files than had previously been released. Friday’s segment of the Epstein files, along with a few others from November, emerged from that account.