The playwright and writer Pierre Notte was indicted for the rape of one of his former high school theater students from 2004 to 2005, which he refutes by arguing that it was a real “love affair” with the teenager.
This file of the #MeToo wave applied to the theater, revealed Monday by Releasegave rise to police custody at the end of April and a filmed confrontation between the renowned and award-winning director, 54, and the complainant, an author aged 37 today.
According to a Source close to the case at AFP, Pierre Notte was indicted on April 25 and placed under judicial supervision for rape committed “by a person abusing the authority conferred on him by his position” between March 2004 and January 2005, when the complainant was 17 years old.
He disputes
“Mr. Notte firmly contests the accusations made against him. He fully relies on the judicial services, in which he has complete confidence”replied his lawyer, Jean-Baptiste Riolacci.
In an email addressed to ReleasePierre Notte said to himself “destroyed by the situation”claiming to have lived “a love story” where Alban K. was “neither terrorized, nor impressed, nor constrained, nor forced, nor submissive.”
“Fragile” student
At the time of the alleged facts, Alban K. was following the theater option led by Pierre Notte in a high school in the Paris region.
His complaint, filed with the constitution of a civil party in September 2022 and of which AFP became aware, describes a student “isolated and fragile”victim of harassment and suffering from the health of a sick father.
In this context, Mr. Notte’s courses“amaze”confides Alban K.. “At the very beginning, I had a very positive image of him, open, kind, curious, protective.”
After a school trip in February 2004, where the teacher “makes it possible to get even closer to the student” according to the complaint, the teenager asked him to meet in a café, but Pierre Notte took him to his house.
“Scared” by the teacher
Alban K. describes a first sexual assault. He finds himself confronted “to a sexuality that goes beyond him, shocks him and disgusts him” during “weekly meetings and during school holidays”states the complaint.
Alban K. remembers being “afraid” by the teacher, “a real despot”. “I was conditioned to having to prove to him that I loved him, that he was the best, otherwise he would threaten to kill himself.”
Their relationship lasts when Alban K. enters university. He broke up in 2010 and left to live in Canada. Mr. Notte was placed under the more favorable status of assisted witness for marital rape from 2005 to 2011.
“Total shift”
Represented by Mes Léa Forestier and Alix Aubenas, Alban K. will file a first complaint in December 2021, disgusted by “impunity” by Pierre Notte who treads the Parisian stage with a piece “claiming to be part of the MeToo movement”: “I forgive you (Harvey Weinstein)”.
For the complainant, his “impunity” also feeds on the autobiographical story “Leave the ranks of assassins” (Gallimard edition, April 2018).
Pierre Notte tells the story of a character, “Not”, who “play the saints” but “masterfully weaves the web of his kidnapping of seduction” on a young person whose “child’s body”in his own words.
“My prince”
“Reality is not enough for him, he must also write it, publish it and advertise it”is indignant Alban K, who fears that Pierre Notte “screws other people”.
The complaint also cites the playwright’s diary, where he calls the teenager “my prince”.
This veneration is “totally out of step” with what Alban K. claims to have experienced: “He even decided when and how I should wash myself, and couldn’t stand it when I took the initiative.”
Anxiety attacks
After the breakup, the memory of Pierre Notte causes him anxiety attacks. This “fear vanishes”he said, during their confrontation.
“I thought I was going to collapse, but it was a cold anger that manifested itself for four hours. I was able to respond very rationally to his aberrations”says Alban K.
