Abbé Pierre affair: actor Benjamin Lavernhe, who played him in a biopic, says he is “devastated” and “betrayed”

Benjamin Lavernhe evokes a betrayal. The actor spoke for the first time regarding his role in the biopic “L'Abbé Pierre, une vie de combats” released in 2023 and directed by Frédéric Tellier, in which he played the man of the Church who has since been accused of sexual assault by dozens of women.

“I am already thinking of the victims, there are 25 testimonies and it is terrible. Obviously, we feel a great betrayal, a great sadness. From astonishment. I'm looking for words, but it's hard to find them. Fear, because somewhere, he was a friend,” said Benjamin Lavernhe in the show “Beau Geste”, broadcast this Sunday on France 2.

Although the two men never met, the French actor claims to have invested enormously in his role, which gave him the impression of having “known a little” Abbé Pierre. “How could this guy who did so many extraordinary things behave so badly? And beyond! The duality of the human being, the ambivalence, it’s always a shock,” lamented Benjamin Lavernhe.

“To say to ourselves that we missed that and didn’t see it, well, that’s what’s the most terrible. So yes, it will take time to recover from it,” he continued.

Iconic figure and founder of Emmaüs, Abbé Pierre, whose real name is Henri Grouès, has since July been the target of a series of testimonies from women on sexual violence committed between the 1950s and the 2000s, and for some of which may amount to rape or target minors.