French actor Gérard Depardieu is in police custody as investigators probe two separate allegations of sexual assault by two girls who labored with the controversial actor on movie units in 2014 and 2021, in keeping with French media experiences.
Depardieu, 75, has confronted sexual assault allegations from greater than a dozen girls since 2018, blighting his popularity as one among France’s most well-known actors. Depardieu starred in The Man within the Iron Masks, The Lifetime of Pi and Inexperienced Card, and was nominated for an Oscar for his main function in 1991’s Cyrano de Bergerac.
French broadcaster BFMTV was the primary to report on Depardieu’s detention by police. He was summoned to a Paris police station on Monday morning to reply questions associated to a sexual assault investigation, the broadcaster realized from a legislation enforcement supply. Agence France-Presse later reported the identical, additionally citing a police supply.
Gérard Depardieu’s lawyer Christian Saint-Palais solutions a name outdoors a Paris police station on Monday, April 29, 2024 amid experiences the actor was summoned by police for questioning.
AP Photograph/Michel Euler
Investigators are reportedly trying into allegations that Depardieu groped a set decorator whereas filming Les Volets Verts in 2021 and groped and made obscene remarks towards a manufacturing assistant in 2014 on the set of The Magician and the Siamese.
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The set decorator, a 53-year-old lady, filed her criticism in opposition to Depardieu on Feb. 23, BFMTV reported on the time. She claims that she was strolling down a hallway previous Depardieu, who was sitting down, when the actor grabbed her along with his legs in a vice-like grip and refused to let her go. He then touched her with out consent and made sexual remarks. One other individual on set needed to extract the girl from Depardieu’s legs.
On Jan. 9, the manufacturing assistant filed her sexual assault criticism, alleging that Depardieu groped her at his mansion in Paris earlier than filming for The Magician and the Siamese started. The girl, 24 on the time, mentioned Depardieu groped her once more and made sexual propositions on the primary day of filming, in keeping with French newspaper Le Courrier de l’Ouest.
Depardieu has not but made a public assertion on the allegations however he has beforehand denied different claims of sexual assault. In a 2023 open letter, Depardieu wrote: “By no means, ever have I abused a lady.”
These newest accusations come after a wave of comparable allegations had been made in opposition to Depardieu beginning 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, however Arnould refiled her criticism and Depardieu was charged with rape in 2020. The case remains to be ongoing.
A stream of girls got here ahead after Arnould filed her criticism. In 2019, former actor Emmanuelle Debever claimed that Depardieu groped her after they had been alone in a carriage on the set of the 1983 film Danton. Debever died by suicide final 12 months at age 60, the identical day {that a} TV documentary about Depardieu’s sexual assault allegations aired.
In December 2023, Depardieu confronted a second official criticism of sexual assault, this time by actor Hélène Darras, who claimed Depardieu groped her on the set of the 2007 movie Disco. The case was dropped in January by French prosecutors as a result of it didn’t fall inside the statute of limitations.
The Quebec authorities stripped Depardieu of his Order of Quebec award, additionally in December 2023, after the actor made “stunning” feedback in a documentary launched that month. Depardieu was filmed making obscene sexual remarks and gestures whereas movie crews coated his go to to North Korea in 2018. He’s the primary individual to have an Order of Quebec eliminated.
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