A Spanish journalist has joined the trail of rape complaints that, since last April, has hung over the actor Gérard Depardieu. This is Ruth Baza, journalist, writer and collaborator of several media outlets who last Thursday reported to the National Police some events that occurred in 1995, when the victim was 23 years old and she interviewed the actor in Paris for the magazine Cinemanía. In her complaint, Baza recounts how the actor kissed her face and neck, and penetrated her with his fingers through her clothes. A behavior that, according to the complainant, has been classified as rape by the police, who will inform the French authorities of the facts.
The new complaint coincides with the recent news of the suicide of one of Depardieu’s alleged victims: the actress Emmanuelle Debever, who on December 6 threw herself into the Seine after leaving a farewell note. The 60-year-old actress reported in 2019 that she had been attacked by Depardieu during the filming of the film Danton in 1982. It is not the only case that currently tarnishes the name of the French actor. Following the publication on the public channel France 2 of the documentary La chute de l’ogre (“The Fall of the Ogre”), the French Minister of Culture, Rima Abdul Malak, has announced that she will consider withdrawing the Legion of Honor that was awarded to him. granted in 1996 by President Jacques Chirac.
The withdrawal of the title is the response to the misogynistic comments contained in the documentary made by the actor during a trip to North Korea in 2018. “I have a beam in my pants,” says Depardieu during a visit to a riding center where He made several obscene and sexualizing comments about women, including some minors. After hearing the minister’s statements, the 74-year-old actor has made his distinction available to the French authorities.
Ruth Baza, a collaborator throughout her career in media such as El Mundo, Interviú, GQ or Cosmopolitan, decided to take the step after recovering her memory about events that remained hidden in her memory for almost three decades. It all came back last April, when Baza read the news in the New York Times about the complaint that 13 women had made against Gerard Depardieu, accusing him of sexual harassment. Reading her information caused “an inner click” that led her to reread her personal diary that she has written since she was a child, where she found her account of her events. Thanks to this information she was able to reconstruct the events that have ended up recorded in a police report filed in Torremolinos.
It was on October 12, 1995 when Baza went to Paris to interview the French actor on the occasion of the premiere of the film Colonel Chabert. “It was a great opportunity, the bomb interview that I was waiting for, and on top of that with an actor that I have always liked,” Baza noted in the October 17 entry in his personal diary. The meeting with the protagonist of films such as Cyrano de Bergerac, Novecento, 1492, Balzac or Asterix
Nothing that went out of bounds until, at the end of the meeting, Depardieu began to kiss her and put his hand on her groin. “He hugged me, he was very tall and strong, and I was very thin, I couldn’t escape, he had me trapped,” said the journalist – who has suffered from anorexia and chronic depression since she was 11 – in an open letter published last June. “He kissed me deeply on the lips, and then on the face with a frenzy, he kissed me again and again. Suddenly I noticed her hand on my chest and then on my crotch, I couldn’t move, I disconnected from my body because she had invaded me. “I didn’t feel anything, I only remember the smell of alcohol and nicotine in my mouth, I don’t know how long it lasted.” According to Baza’s story, Depardieu poked his fingers in her crotch through the thin skirt she was wearing. “I couldn’t think clearly but I knew it wasn’t right,” Ruth wrote in her diary.
Still in shock, Baza returned to Madrid, where he spoke with his mother as well as with Javier Angulo, director of the magazine Cinemanía at the time, without daring due to fear and shame to explain what happened during the interview, which was published in issue 2. of the publication, corresponding to November 1995. Then came the silence that lasted 28 years, until the investigation carried out by the Mediapart portal once again brought to the surface a story that has not given the journalist a minute of rest, until pushing her to file the complaint. “I felt very comforted because it has been a very complicated few months to understand that what really happened was that,” a rape, although she did not use the word.
“The worst thing is having forgotten all these years, I am unable to remember how I left Paris and arrived in Madrid,” Baza explained in a telephone conversation last week while remembering his encounter with “that monster Depardieu.” The journalist is aware that the course of the investigation is uncertain, since sexual crimes have a statute of limitations of 20 years, but she hopes that her complaint will serve to help other people “who have been abused in the past and that the memory come back one day,” and also “help myself get over it.” Since her memories returned to her mind, Baza has lived in permanent anguish that led her last June to recount her experience in detail in a letter, in the hope that someone would give it to her. know; But due to the lack of response and the persistence of discomfort, she was finally forced to go to the police.
The news that fueled the complaint was the report published by the French media Mediapart in which 13 women recounted various acts of sexual violence or inappropriate behavior by the French actor, carried out during the filming of 11 films between 2004 and 2022. Some of the victims, actresses, interns or team workers, remained anonymous, while others used pseudonyms. None of them filed a complaint about the events, although three provided their testimony to the court, out of fear of the possible consequences that the decision could have on their professional future.
The alleged harassments had the same modus operandi, with touching the crotch, buttocks or chest, as well as obscene sexual comments. A behavior that was repeated in the case of Hélène Darras, who last September filed a complaint for an attack that allegedly occurred during the filming of the film Disco, in 2007, when the actress was 26 years old. This December it was learned that the actress had filed a complaint about the events, as had also been done previously by actress Charlotte Arnould, whose father was a friend of the actor. Arnould reported two rapes committed at the star’s Paris home, an accusation confirmed by the Court of Appeal in 2022.
Depardieu did not respond to the statements published by Mediapart but his lawyers did, stating that the actor “formally denies the charges that may fall within criminal law”, while ensuring that the plaintiffs’ testimonies were based on “ very subjective evaluations and/or moral judgments.” Last October the actor published an article in the newspaper Le Figaro in which he rejected the accusations of rape and claimed to have suffered a “lynching.” The actor described himself as “a gentleman who loves courtship” always “opposed to all forms of violence, whether verbal, physical or psychological,” as well as “extremely modest” in sexual matters.