Learn More About Ronan Farrow Before the Premiere of HBO's Catch and Kill: The Podcast Tapes

Author:
Alexandra Hurtado
Jul 12, 2021

Journalist Ronan Farrow is heading to the small screen in a new documentary series about how his reporting helped take down Hollywood honcho and convicted sex offender Harvey Weinstein. HBO's Catch and Kill: The Podcast Tapes "is the story of the group of sources who risked everything to expose the truth," Farrow says in a trailer for the six-part series, which is based on his 2019 book, also called Catch and Kill. "It’s the story of how media and law enforcement and the world of private espionage protected a powerful and predatory man."

Known for his investigative reporting, get to know the 33-year-old before the premiere of Catch and Kill: The Podcast Tapes.

Who is Ronan Farrow?

Farrow is an investigative reporter who won a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2018 for his bombshell reporting on HarveyWeinstein for The New Yorker. Ronan has told The New York Timesthat he brings "caution, rigor, and nuance" to each of his stories. He said, "I’m proud of a body of reporting that has helped to expose wrongdoing and to bring important stories into public view."

He also grew up a child prodigy, earning a BA in philosophy from Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, at the ripe, old age of 15! A year later, he started studying at Yale Law School, earning a J.D. from that prestigious institution in 2009 before launching a career in public service under President Barack Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He was then named a Rhodes Scholar in 2012 and studied at England's Oxford University, where he earned his Ph.D. (he recently told The New York Times that Oxford is an "incredible place" that feels like "Hogwarts") before ultimately launching his career in journalism.

Despite his reputation today as one of the world's most esteemed and tenacious reporters, Farrow's rise up the journalism ranks was anything but smooth sailing. He was given his own news program on MSNBC, Ronan Farrow Daily, that only ran for a year before it was canceled in 2015. He was still working behind the scenes as a reporter at NBC News when he started pursuing the Weinstein story, but—as Farrow and several other sources have since alleged—his higher-ups there killed the piece, claiming it was because Farrow's reporting wasn't thorough enough. Farrow then took his work to The New Yorker, publishing the exposé that ultimately earned him his Pulitzer.

"I walked into the door at The New Yorker with an explosively reportable piece that should have been public earlier," he told Rachel Maddow in October 2019. "And immediately, obviously, The New Yorker recognized that, and it is not accurate to say that it was not reportable. In fact, there were multiple determinations that it was reportable at NBC."

NBC, for their part, maintains the research did not live up to their standards. In an August 2018 statement, an NBC News spokesperson said, "The assertion that NBC News tried to kill the Weinstein story while Ronan Farrow was at NBC News, or even more ludicrously, after he left NBC News, is an outright lie. In August of 2017, after NBC News assigned Ronan Farrow to investigate Weinstein and supported his reporting efforts for seven months, Farrow believed his reporting was ready for air. NBC disagreed because, unfortunately, he did not yet have a single victim of ― or witness to ― misconduct by Weinstein who was willing to be identified. Dissatisfied with that decision, Farrow chose to leave for a print outlet that he said was willing to publish immediately. NBC News told him ‘we will not stand in your way,’ and allowed him to take his reporting to The New Yorker, where, two months later, he published a strong piece that cited the following victims by name: Asia Argento, Mira Sorvino, Rosanna Arquette, Lucia Evans, Emma de Caunes, Jessica Barth, and Sophie Dix. Not one of these seven women was included in the reporting Farrow presented while at NBC News."

Is Ronan Farrow married?

The journalist is engaged to podcast host and Crooked Media cofounder Jon Lovett, whom he met in 2011. Ronan asked the former presidential speechwriter to marry him in 2019 while he was working on his book Catch and Kill by popping the question on the page of a draft Lovett was reading over for him. "Marriage?" Farrow wrote. "On the moon or even here on Earth?" According to Farrow, Lovett "read the draft [and] said, 'Sure.'"

Farrow has praised the 38-year-old Lovett for his unflinching support amidst the reporting that led to Catch and Kill. While appearing on one of Lovett's podcasts in 2019, Farrow said, "If I hadn't had him and the brave sources who were taking such huge risks in my ear saying, 'Hey, this matters, this matters, we matter'... things might've been very different, and those stories might not have broken."

Who are Ronan Farrow's parents?

Born Satchel Ronan O’Sullivan Farrow, Farrow is the biological son of actress Mia Farrow and actor and filmmaker Woody Allen. His mother won a Best Actress Oscar for 1968's Rosemary’s Baby and also starred in several of Allen's projects in the '80s and early '90s before their relationship fell apart. Allen is also an Oscar winner, winning Best Director for Annie Hall and Best Screenplay three times, including for AnnieHall and Midnight in Paris.

In the early '90s, a massive scandal erupted after Allen moved on from Mia by dating and ultimately marrying her adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn. (Soon-Yi's adoptive father was conductor André Previn, who Mia was married to before dating Allen.) Since then, Ronan has been estranged from Allen—and been one of his father's loudest critics, supporting his sister Dylan Farrow amid her allegations that Allen sexually abused her when she was a child. (Allen has denied those allegations.)

In 2018, when asked when he last spoke to his father, Ronan told The Hollywood Reporter, "I don’t actually know the answer to that." He said, "We have had contact over the years, but he is not someone that I keep up with regularly."

Is Frank Sinatra really Ronan Farrow's father?

Mia Farrow did not have any children with her first husband, singer Frank Sinatra, during their brief marriage from 1966-1968. However, in a 2013 interview with Vanity Fair, Mia said that Ronan was "possibly" Ol’ Blue Eyes' son. That outlet also reported that the actress and her first husband stayed close "even when she was married" to Previn and "continued to see Sinatra throughout her 13-year relationship" with Allen.

Ronan addressed his mother's comment in 2013 when he told Vulture, "You know, I wasn’t there, so I don’t have a lot more to offer than you,” adding, “Of course, it is a distraction … But I take it in stride. Look, we all have, you know, our family histories to bear." Ronan also noted, "I appreciate how hilarious it is. I mean, it’s a ridiculous situation. That said, I’m pretty unfazed by it in substance, because it’s been out there both publicly and privately for so long. You know, I have a relationship that I’m very happy with, you know, with all parties involved. For me, the imperative is ‘all right, we’ve talked about it, I get a kick out of it, everyone gets a kick out of it."

How many children does Mia Farrow have?

Mia is a mother of 14 kids, four biological—Matthew Previn, Sascha Previn, Fletcher Previn and Ronan Farrow—and 10 adopted: Lark Previn, Summer "Daisy" Previn, Soon-Yi Previn, Moses Farrow, Dylan Farrow, Tam Farrow, Isaiah Farrow, Quincy Farrow, Frankie-Minh Farrow and Thaddeus Farrow. Mia opened up about the passing of three of her adopted children, Tam, Lark and Thaddeus, in a 2021 statement, calling their deaths "unspeakable tragedies."

Who is Dylan Farrow?

Dylan is Mia's adoptive daughter. Per PEOPLE, the actress adopted Dylan from Texas in 1985 and Allen formally adopted her in 1991. The Hush author has claimed that her father sexually assaulted her when she was young.

Recalling when she was 7 years old, Dylan told CBS This Morning's Gayle King, "I was taken to a small attic crawl space in my mother's country house in Connecticut by my father. He instructed me to lay down on my stomach and play with my brother's toy train that was set up. And he sat behind me in the doorway, and as I played with the toy train, I was sexually assaulted… As a 7-year-old I would say, I would have said he touched my private parts."

In a 2016 guest column for The Hollywood Reporter, Ronan wrote about his sister's allegations. He penned, "I believe my sister. This was always true as a brother who trusted her, and, even at 5 years old, was troubled by our father’s strange behavior around her: climbing into her bed in the middle of the night, forcing her to suck his thumb — behavior that had prompted him to enter into therapy focused on his inappropriate conduct with children prior to the allegations."

When does Catch and Kill: The Podcast Tapes premiere?

The first two episodes of the six-part documentary series premiere on Monday, July 12, at 9 p.m. ET.

How to watch Catch and Kill: The Podcast Tapes

The series will debut on HBO and will also be available to stream on HBO Max, starting with the first two episodes, which both premiere on Monday, July 12, at 9 p.m. ET. The third and fourth episodes are slated to debut on Monday, July 19, followed by the last two episodes on Monday, July 26.

Next, Scarlett Johansson Breaks Silence on Woody Allen Abuse Controversy