What happens to Gérard Depardieu in the affair denounced by Charlotte Arnould? The “sacred monster” of French cinema has been under investigation since 2020, after the complaint filed by the actress who accuses him of two rapes committed in August 2018. He was then 69 years old, she 19. Last August, the public prosecutor’s office Paris requested a trial.
But Gérard Depardieu vigorously denies these accusations. He had already requested the annulment of his indictment, but it was confirmed in March 2022. This time, his defense filed two appeals. They must be examined this Thursday afternoon by the Paris Court of Appeal.
He calls for the nullity of a testimony
A first appeal requests the nullity of a testimony from an extra, collected by the investigation site Mediapart, then by e-mail by the investigators, the woman living abroad according to one of the sources close to the case. In December 2014, during a scene from the filming of Big Housedirected by Jean-Emmanuel Godart, “without warning, Gérard Depardieu put his hand under my dress,” she told Mediapart. “He tried to pull my panties aside and finger me […] If I had not stopped him, he would have succeeded,” she assured.
Charlotte Arnould’s lawyer highlighted the similarity of this scene with her client’s testimony. “His modus operandi is his hand in his pants”, facilitating the “surprise rape”, accused Me Carine Durrieu-Diebolt. Asked by Agence France-Presse, the actor’s counsel, Jérémie Assous, refused to respond.
He denounces a “fraudulent assembly” of Further investigation
The second request concerns the rushes of the show Further investigationthe subject of heated controversy in December 2023 and which precipitated the actor’s downfall. Gérard Depardieu, on a trip to North Korea in 2018, made multiple misogynistic remarks and made others of a sexual nature when a little girl on a horse appeared in the image. “If he ever gallops, she enjoys,” he says in particular.
A fraudulent setup according to his defense, which ordered the magistrate responsible for investigating the rapes of Charlotte Arnould to seize these rushes. But if the judge did ask France TV and the production company Hikari to communicate the rushes, she explained that she could not force them to do so, because she is only responsible for investigating the accusations of rape.
Tried in March in another case
Gérard Depardieu will also have to appear at the end of March for sexual assault on two women during the filming, in 2021, of Green shutterscharges he also disputes. The hearing was to be held at the end of October, but the actor did not appear, citing a deterioration in his state of health.
His lawyer assured that the actor wanted to come and explain himself, but that this would be impossible for at least six months. Without accepting such a delay, the Paris Criminal Court postponed the case to March 24 and 25.
