Babi Christina Engelhardt, the model who inspired Woody Allen’s popular 1979 film Manhattan—in which a 17-year-old girl beds a 42-year-old man—has, for the first time, opened up about her clandestine affair with the filmmaker that started in 1976 when she was 16 and he was 41. Their relationship went on for eight years.
However, in sharing her story, Engelhardt—who is now 59—is clear that she doesn’t intend to shame Allen—now 82—or have people judge their relationship, especially after the global #MeToo movement when the gender dynamics have drastically shifted.
"It's almost as if I'm now expected to trash him," she told The Hollywood Reporter. "What made me speak is I thought I could provide a perspective. I'm not attacking Woody. This is not 'bring down this man.' I'm talking about my love story. This made me who I am. I have no regrets," she said.
Despite being in a largely sexual closeted relationship that also included threesomes with other women, one of them being Allen’s then girlfriend Mia Farrow, and the many allegations against him that have surfaced over the years, including one by her adopted daughter Dylan Farrow, Engelhardt still considers Allen to be “a Great Man”.
“…his wit is magnetic. It was why I liked him and why I'm still impressed with him as an artist—how he played with characters in his movies, and how he played with me," she told The Hollywood Reporter.
Their relationship had two primary rules—no discussions about his work and meetings only at his place. Taking about it, Engelhardt said, "I was a pleaser, agreeable. Knowing he was a director, I didn't argue. I was coming from a place of devotion."
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