A 55-year-old set designer filed a complaint against Depardieu in February 2024. She says the actor, among other things, made lewd comments, “brutally grabbed her” and groped her waist, stomach and breasts on the set of ‘Les volets verts’ in a Paris mansion in September 2021.
Depardieu will now have to answer for this in court. A second complaint of sexual assault will also be heard during the trial. It concerns a woman who worked on the same film set as an assistant director.
© Getty Images
The French actor has consistently denied the accusations. “The witnesses and the evidence he will provide will show that he is the target of false accusations,” his lawyer Jérémy Assous said in the run-up to the trial. According to Assous, the complainants are only after money. “The pursued goal has become clear from the damage claims: self-enrichment with 30,000 euros.”
According to Assous, Depardieu would attend his trial. “I expect that justice will be equal for everyone and that Depardieu will not receive special treatment because he is an actor,” said the 55-year-old woman’s lawyer, Carine Durrieu-Diebolt.
Depardieu not present at trial on Monday, lawyer requests postponement
Depardieu cannot attend the trial on Monday due to health reasons and will ask for a postponement. His lawyer Jérémie Assous said this to Franceinfo.
“Gérard Depardieu is very affected and unfortunately his doctors have forbidden him to attend the hearing. That is why he is going to ask for a postponement to a later date so that he can be present,” said Jérémie Assous. He added that the actor “wants to speak out” about the facts, which he disputes.
Actress Anouk Grinberg, who starred in ‘Les volets verts’, testified in an interview with the French news agency AFP in March about Depardieu’s “nasty behavior” on the set, which occurred “from early in the morning until late at night.” persisted. She also criticized the fact that film producers were aware of the actor’s behavior and kept it quiet.
Twenty accusations
Depardieu was one of the great stars of French cinema. In total, about twenty women accuse him of inappropriate behavior.
French actress Charlotte Arnould was the first to file a complaint against Depardieu. In mid-August, the Paris public prosecutor’s office ordered a trial for rape and sexual assault against the seventy-year-old in that file.
An investigation is also underway in Paris into a complaint from a former assistant director of sexual assault in 2014. Spanish journalist Ruth Baza, among others, accused Depardieu at the end of last year of raping her in 1995.
Christian Saint-Palais, Depardieu’s lawyer — © AFP
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