No to harassment. This is the theme of this week on the show It starts today on France 2. This Monday, November 4, Faustine Bollaert received three well-known public figures on her set to talk about what they had experienced: rape, sexual assault, sexual assault, etc.
The host and journalist of C8, Jordan Deluxethe dancer and choreographer, former teacher of the Star Academy, Yanis Marshall as well as the singer Gwendal Marimoutou. Discovered in The Voicehe notably participated in the musical show The Lion King. He said he was sexually assaulted for 7 months by his singing teacher when he was 14.
Gwendal Marimoutou: “the grip has begun”
The day before a singing lesson, a rehearsal is also planned. This man, who at that time was part of a great musical comedy known for twenty yearswill then suggest to Gwendal that they come and sleep at his house in order to go to class together the next day. It is within his teacher’s home that the attack will take place. “He comes to pick me up at the station, we go to McDonald’s, he gets me a children’s menu. I say it but it’s still important to realize. So a little Happy Meal. (…) I remember at the end of the last bite of my ice cream, he put his hand in, it’s quite intense, quite brutal.” he testifies. “I felt dirty, I lied to my mother, I told her straight away: ‘II don’t want this to happen againI can’t do stuff like that, I feel bad’” says Gwendal Marimoutou. “The grip has begun, we are immediately put into a sort of guilt: ‘be careful Gwendal if you speak, big problems could happen to me…‘”
The young man will keep silent for six years and not tell anyone about it. But a call from the juvenile brigade will change everything. “It was only when the juvenile brigade called me six years later, and I found myself in their office, that I realized that there was a modus operandi, that I was not completely alone, that it was not my fault, it was the beginning of my reconstruction.” he concluded.
