A California woman claims she had an eight-year affair with actor-director Woody Allen that began when she was 16 and he was 41, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Christina Engelhardt told the magazine in an interview published Monday that the affair began in October 1976 after the two met at Elaine’s, a New York City restaurant.
Engelhardt said Allen did not make the first move. She wrote her telephone number on a napkin, noting that “Since you’ve signed enough autographs, here’s mine.”
Engelhardt, 59, told the Reporter that while Allen never asked her age, she told the actor she was still in high school in New Jersey and was pursuing a modeling career in Manhattan.
Within weeks, she said, the pair had become physically intimate at his Manhattan apartment. The legal age for sexual consent in New York is 17, and Engelhardt did not turn 17 until Dec, 4, 1976.
""What made me speak is I thought I could provide a perspective. I'm not attacking Woody," Engelhardt told the Reporter. "This is not 'bring down this man.' I'm talking about my love story. This made me who I am. I have no regrets."
Four years into their affair, Engelhardt said, Allen introduced her to his girlfriend, Mia Farrow. Engelhardt said she was taken aback, believing she was Allen’s girlfriend.
"I felt sick. I didn't want to be there at all, and yet I couldn't find the courage to get up and leave,” Engelhardt wrote in an unpublished manuscript she shared with the magazine. “To leave would mean an end to all of this.”
Representatives for Allen, 83, and Farrow, 73, have not commented on Engelhardt's claims, E!News reported.
Allen has been accused of sexual assault and abuse by his daughter, Dylan Farrow, E!News reported. Allen has denied all allegations and has never been charged.
Allen’s current wife, Soon-Yi Previn, is the adopted daughter of Mia Farrow.
