Mia Farrow has reacted to Diane Keaton’s shocking death following their complicated history.
“She was an absolutely wonderful actress — and a rare and fascinating person,” Farrow, 80, wrote about Keaton via Instagram on Saturday, October 11. “Thoughts with her children and sisters. Rest in peace Diane.”
Keaton’s spokesperson announced her death at age 79 and asked for “privacy” on behalf of the Oscar winner’s family on Saturday, though no official details have been released. (Keaton is survived by her two children, daughter Dexter and son Duke, whom she adopted as a single mom well into her 50s.)
Farrow and Keaton have a long history through both their professional and personal relationships with actor-director Woody Allen.
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Allen, 89, dated Keaton — as well as her sisters Robin Keaton and Dory Keaton — in the 1970s. Diane went on to star in several of the filmmaker’s 1970s comedies and won a Best Actress Oscar for her role in Allen’s 1977 movie, Annie Hall.
Their romantic relationship fizzled by the end of the 70s, though they remained close friends and collaborators. Farrow became Allen’s cinematic muse starting with 1982’s A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy and, as a result, they too had a long romantic relationship.
During their 12 years together, Allen and Farrow adopted two children, daughter Dylan and son Moses. The pair also had a biological son, Ronan.(Farrow has 11 other children.)
Farrow split from Allen in 1992 after discovering his affair with her adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn. (Allen and Previn married in 1997 and share two children.)
During the couple’s highly-publicized custody battle in 1992, the former couple’s daughter Dylan accused Allen of assaulting her when she was 7 years old. Dylan repeated those accusations in a 2014 New York Times op-ed and again in HBO’s four-part 2021 docuseries, Allen v. Farrow. Allen has always strenuously denied any wrongdoing and was never criminally charged.
Keaton stood by Allen in the wake of the scandal, telling More magazine in 2014 that Dylan’s accusations did not impact her friendship with the director.
“I’m Woody’s friend and I’ve been Woody’s friend for 45 years,” she said at the time. “And nothing’s going to change that.”
That same year, Keaton accepted the prestigious Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement on Allen’s behalf at the Golden Globes. (Allen has famously refused to attend Hollywood award shows since the 1970s.)
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When Dylan’s accusations against Allen resurfaced in the wake of the #MeToo movement, Keaton tweeted in 2018 that she trusted the filmmaker. Keaton also shared a link to Allen’s 1992 “no holds barred” interview with 60 Minutes, where he denied abusing his daughter.
“Woody Allen is my friend and I continue to believe him. It might be of interest to take a look at the 60 Minute interview from 1992 and see what you think,” she wrote via X (formerly Twitter).
For her part, Mia told The Hollywood Reporter that she never held anything against actors, who chose to work with Allen after Dylan’s accusations were made public.
Diane Keaton’s Dating History Through the Years
“I completely understand if an actor decides to work with him,” she said in September 2024. “I’m not one who’d say, ‘Oh, they shouldn’t.’”
In the wake of Keaton’s death, many of her former costars — including cast members from Father of the Bride, Book Club and The First Wives Club — paid tribute to her incredible Hollywood legacy.
Goldie Hawn wrote via Instagram on Saturday, “Diane, we aren’t ready to lose you. You’ve left us with a trail of fairy dust, filled with particles of light and memories beyond imagination. How do we say goodbye? What words can come to mind when your heart is broken? You never liked praise, so humble, but now you can’t tell me to ‘shut up’ honey. There was, and will be, no one like you.”
“It’s hard to believe…or accept…that Diane has passed,” Jane Fonda acknowledged. “She was always a spark of life and light, constantly giggling at her own foibles, being limitlessly creative…in her acting, her wardrobe, her books, her friends, her homes, her library, her world view. Unique is what she was. And, though she didn’t know it or wouldn’t admit it, man she was a fine actress!”
Keaton’s career in Hollywood lasted nearly 60 years, with her final movie role being 2024’s comedy Summer Camp.
