In his autobiography Say true published this May 1, the director’s little sister remembered the couple’s estrangement. Today, she retains some resentment towards the One who gave birth in her to “distrust and systematic abjection towards men”.
Maïwenn did not emerge unscathed from her passionate and tumultuous love affair with Luc Besson. In 1991, when she met him backstage at the Césars, he, 17 years her senior, was at the height of his glory, while she was starting her career in cinema and was only 15 years old. In his autobiographical book, Say true, published this May 1 by Denoël editions, Islid Le Besco, Maïwenn’s sister, returns with her former child’s eyes to the withering of their romance.
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The actress first remembered the splendor, while the latter, from a family of five, had until then a modest lifestyle with her family. “My world was divided into two distinct poles, two social classes. On the one hand, Belleville, marginality, precariousness – especially emotional; on the other, luxury and lightness at her side, she explains between her lines, as reported Paris Match . One day, Luc took me to school on a motorbike. I was happy ! Proud. […] I saw Luc as the promise of a better world, an ideal.
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Departure for the United States
Especially since between her big sister and the director of Big Blue, everything goes very quickly. A year after they met, the couple united in a grand ceremony. A few months later their daughter Shanna was born. Maïwenn is just 16 years old, Luc Besson is 34. “1993. My sister was sixteen when she gave birth to her daughter. Maïwenn told us about a marriage, but it was not formalized in France. I have no memory of her delivery or the clinic where it took place. However, there are dozens of photos which establish my presence,” writes Islid Le Besco. Madly in love and a very young mother, Maïwenn then followed her husband to the United States with their child under her arms.
Five years later, the breakup between Maïwenn and Luc Besson was made official in front of all the photographers. “In Cannes, in 1997, it was The fifth Element by Luc who opened the Festival. Maïwenn was absent from the red carpet, Luc walked on the arm of Milla Jovovich, the film’s main actress. And his new companion.” A very painful time for the actress, feeling “humiliated and abandoned” without any consideration, having never hidden her descent into hell and her depression. Maïwenn actually shared the poster with Milla Jovovich in her ex-husband’s film. “She took all her courage to appear alongside Luc and the woman who had replaced her during filming. […] In Cannes, the car that was supposed to pick her up for the opening never arrived. She had been forgotten in the eyes of the whole world. She went to the screening alone, without cameras. On foot, I think.” And added: “Luc had the power to instantly take someone out of their environment, to offer them the dream of family life, then to take it all back in an instant.”
If Islid Le Besco initially wrote this book to denounce the sexual assaults of Benoït Jacquot (also accused by Judith Godrèche), today she cannot resist Luc Besson with resentment and bitterness. “If I look back into the origins of deviance, the face of Luc Besson appears. […] He put all his promises to death. It has infested the future by creating in me distrust and systematic abjection towards men,” she declared.
