Gérard Depardieu in police custody over latest sexual assault allegations
Global News
Gérard Depardieu, 75, has faced sexual assault allegations from more than a dozen women, blighting his reputation as one of France's most well-known actors.
French actor Gérard Depardieu is in police custody as investigators probe two separate allegations of sexual assault by two women who worked with the controversial actor on film sets in 2014 and 2021, according to French media reports.
Depardieu, 75, has faced sexual assault allegations from more than a dozen women since 2018, blighting his reputation as one of France’s most well-known actors. Depardieu starred in The Man in the Iron Mask, The Life of Pi and Green Card, and was nominated for an Oscar for his leading role in 1991’s Cyrano de Bergerac.
French broadcaster BFMTV was the first to report on Depardieu’s detention by police. He was summoned to a Paris police station on Monday morning to answer questions related to a sexual assault investigation, the broadcaster learned from a law enforcement source. Agence France-Presse later reported the same, also citing a police source.
Investigators are reportedly looking into allegations that Depardieu groped a set decorator while filming Les Volets Verts in 2021 and groped and made obscene remarks toward a production assistant in 2014 on the set of The Magician and the Siamese.
The set decorator, a 53-year-old woman, filed her complaint against Depardieu on Feb. 23, BFMTV reported at the time. She claims that she was walking down a hallway past Depardieu, who was sitting down, when the actor grabbed her with his legs in a vice-like grip and refused to let her go. He then touched her without consent and made sexual remarks. Another person on set had to extract the woman from Depardieu’s legs.
On Jan. 9, the production assistant filed her sexual assault complaint, alleging that Depardieu groped her at his mansion in Paris before filming for The Magician and the Siamese began. The woman, 24 at the time, said Depardieu groped her again and made sexual propositions on the first day of filming, according to French newspaper Le Courrier de l’Ouest.
Depardieu has not yet made a public statement on the allegations but he has previously denied other claims of sexual assault. In a 2023 open letter, Depardieu wrote: “Never, ever have I abused a woman.”
These latest accusations come after a wave of similar allegations were made against Depardieu starting in 2018, when then-22-year-old French actor Charlotte Arnould accused the Cyrano de Bergerac star of raping her. The case was initially dismissed, but Arnould refiled her complaint and Depardieu was charged with rape in 2020. The case is still ongoing.
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