New important step in the investigations into sexual assault targeting Gérard Depardieu: the actor, already indicted for rape, was placed in police custody on Monday in Paris to be heard on facts denounced by two women. After his interview with investigators, the actor was able to leave the premises of the judicial police at the end of the afternoon. “The custody is over. He is no longer held in the police station,” one of his lawyers, Me Christian Saint-Palais, declared to journalists shortly before 6:30 p.m., deploring the leaks to the press. The actor disputes the accusations, his counsel said.
“At the end of his police custody at the 3rd judicial police district, Gérard Depardieu was given a summons to appear before the criminal court (…) for sexual assaults likely to have been committed in September 2021 to the prejudice of two victims, on the set of the film ”The Green Shutters”,” said the prosecution. The actor will be judged next October.
For many months, Gérard Depardieu, legend of French cinema, has been in turmoil. A decorator, who worked on the team of the film “Les Volets Verts” directed by Jean Becker, accuses him of having sexually assaulted her in 2021. When asked, her lawyer, Me Carine Durrieu-Diebolt, did not wish to comment the summons of the actor. His client filed a complaint in February 2024 for sexual assault, sexual harassment and sexist insults. The facts date back to September 2021 and allegedly took place in a private hotel in Paris.
Obscene remarks
According to his account to Mediapart, the actor would have made numerous gravelly comments during filming, then later would have “grabbed her brutally” and would have “kneaded her waist, her stomach, going up to her breasts” . He also made “obscene remarks” to her such as “come touch my big parasol, I’m going to shove it in your pussy,” she told the news site.
According to Mediapart, another woman, an assistant director on the same shoot, accused the actor of sexual violence and filed a complaint. During this filming, “from morning to evening, we were allowed to make salacious comments,” actress Anouk Grinberg testified. “When film producers hire Depardieu on a film, they know that they are hiring an aggressor,” she accused.
Several complaints
Another complaint is brought by a former film assistant who accuses Gérard Depardieu of sexual assault in 2014.
According to Le Courrier de l’Ouest, this woman, aged 24 at the time of the events and who also wishes to remain anonymous, filed a complaint on January 9, denouncing “obscene remarks” made by Gérard Depardieu during meetings in his private mansion in Paris.
She also accuses him of having sexually assaulted her and of having made sexual propositions to her during the filming in Maine-et-Loire of the film “The Magician and the Siamese” by Jean-Pierre Mocky in March 2014.
The complainant spoke to the regional newspaper about “her paws all over (her) body” and the “indecent words” of the actor on the set.
Indicted since 2020
The French cinema giant has also been indicted since 2020 for rape and sexual assault on a young actress, Charlotte Arnould. The actress Hélène Darras had also filed a complaint against him for sexual assault during filming in 2007, but it was closed by the Paris prosecutor’s office for prescription.
In Spain, Gérard Depardieu, who played “Cyrano de Bergerac”, is also the target of a complaint from the journalist and writer Ruth Baza, who accuses him of having raped her in 1995. In total, around twenty women testified in the press or in court.
“Never, ever have I abused a woman,” the 75-year-old actor said in an open letter published in October 2023 in Le Figaro, referring to Charlotte Arnould’s accusations.
Series of accusations
These investigations come at a time when the world of cinema is experiencing an explosion, shaken by a succession of accusations of sexual violence, from actresses but also from actors.
After Gérard Depardieu, filmmakers Benoît Jacquot and Jacques Doillon are the target of an investigation for rape of a minor, after a complaint filed by actress Judith Godrèche.
