Gérard Depardieu returns to the present for his behavior behind the screen. The 74-year-old French actor who became a Russian national in 2013 has been denounced by 13 women who accuse him of sexual violence or inappropriate behavior. This has been documented by the digital French information and investigation newspaper Mediapart, which has collected the testimony of the alleged victims, who were filming partners.
The report explains that these acts of violence occurred during the filming of 11 films between 2004 and 2022. Three of the women testified in court without filing a complaint. Some remained anonymous, others used a pseudonym. “Some gave up, others don’t even think about it. All this because of the feeling that their word would weigh little in front of the monument of French cinema. And because they could even sign the end of their careers,” says the investigation, which has lasted several months.
Actress Sarah Brooks has accused Depardieu of trying to abuse her “in plain sight” and that his harassment “would have caused laughter” by the crew on the set in question. Even the director Fabien Onteniente, as he has declared to the French publication, was forced to call the actor’s own attention verbally in 2007. The report includes stories that say that these incidents were often ignored on set with a same phrase when a complaint was made: “Oh, it’s okay, it’s Gérard!”. Among the eleven productions in which these episodes of harassment would have been recorded are the film L’autre Dumas (2010) or the Netflix series Marseille (2016-2018).
Depardieu’s alleged harassment occurred with the same “modus operandi” to the complainants, including actresses, makeup artists, technicians or other members of the filming crew. The thirteen women coincide in having suffered groping in the crotch, buttocks or chest, as well as obscene sexual comments. “Without warning, Gérard Depardieu put his hand under my dress. I felt his fingers trying to sneak in to reach my panties,” explains Lyla (pseudonym), about a situation that occurred in 2014, when she was 24 years old. “I pushed his hand away, but he continued, got aggressive, tried to take off my underwear and touch me. I understood that he wasn’t playing a character. If he hadn’t stopped him, he would have made it,” she says.
The actor has not ruled on these accusations, but his lawyers have done so: “He formally denies all charges that may fall within criminal law.” The lawyers of the protagonist of Asterix and Obelix have assured that the testimonies of these women are based on “very subjective evaluations and / or moral judgments”. Several directors and producers involved in the productions cited in the report also issued statements denying any knowledge of Depardieu’s actions.
The interpreter, recognized for his Cyrano de Bergerac, was already formally denounced in 2021 for rape and sexual harassment by actress Charlotte Arnould, whose father was an old friend of Depardieu’s. The events would have occurred in 2018 and her alleged victim accused him of raping her and sexually assaulting her twice in her Paris mansion in the summer of that year after she sought advice to improve her interpretations. her. The accusations were denied by Depardieu throughout and the case is still under investigation in the French courts.
Gérard Depardieu is not helped by the statements he made a few years ago to Film Comment magazine about his tumultuous adolescence in Châteauroux, where he stated that at the age of nine he participated in his first rape encouraged by a friend. “One thing leads to another, and voila! (…) It was normal. After that, I was raped many times, too many to countâ€, he revealed in an article published in 1978. “The girls wanted to be raped. Well, it’s not really rape. It’s just a story about a girl who gets into a situation that she likes,†the actor continued.
The French actor is a living legend of cinema. His role in Cyrano de Bergerac launched him to world fame in 1990, but for more than a decade his life has been marked by excesses, scandals and tragedy. His addiction to alcohol has already eclipsed his professional side; and his bad relationship with the eldest of his four children, who died at the age of 37, also marked his personal life. Gérard’s relationship with his son Guillaume was so bad that the young Depardieu had been accused of holding a gun on his father in 2003. Guillaume died without reconciling with his father, whom he described as as selfish and violent.
His ex, the actress Carole Bouquet, who was his partner from 1997 to 2005, gave what is perhaps the best definition of the actor: “You only have to look at Gérard physically to understand certain aspects of his character. There are men who are ogres. His appetites are rarely satisfied. Life doesn’t satisfy them.”
At the end of 2012, Depardieu announced his exile in protest against the high taxes he must pay in France. On January 3, 2013, President Vladimir Putin granted him Russian citizenship after moving his habitual residence to Saransk, capital of the Republic of Mordovia, Russia, which represented a further step in his fight against the 75 percent tax. to the wealthiest people, established by the then French president, François Hollande.
The actor likes to describe his new nation, Russia, as a “great democracy” despite excessive control, censorship and the long stay in power of the first president. Also, he calls Vladimir Putin a great friend. Although, in one of his last public appearances, he took a position regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “Russia and Ukraine have always been brother countries. I am against this fratricidal war. I tell them: ‘lay down the weapons and negotiate!’ â€, he said in a statement to the French agency AFP.
