Le Figaro published an open letter from Gérard Depardieu in which the latter, accused of sexual violence by 16 women, breaks his silence.
Indicted since December 2020 for “rape and sexual assault“, following the complaint of the actress Charlotte Arnould, who accuses him of having raped her in 2018 and accused by 15 other women, whose last testimony dates back to last July, Gérard Depardieu decided to break his silence .
In a long survey published last April, Mediapart also gave the floor to 13 of these women with edifying testimonies. The actor, presumed innocent, had denied “formally all the accusations likely to come under criminal law“.
While several performances of his show “Depardieu chante Barbara” were disrupted by demonstrations, the 74-year-old actor published last night, in Le Figaroan open letter in which he disputes the accusations.
“I can no longer consent to what I hear, what I have read about myself for several months. I thought I didn’t care, but no, actually no. This all gets to me. Worse still, turns me off. Today, I can no longer sing Barbara because a woman who wanted to sing Barbara with me accused me of rape. I finally want to tell you my truth.
Never, ever have I abused a woman
I have never, ever abused a woman. Hurting a woman would be like kicking my own mother in the stomach.
A woman came to my house for the first time, walking lightly, going up to my room of her own free will. She now says she was raped there. She came back a second time. There has never been any coercion, violence or protest between us. She wanted to sing Barbara’s songs at the Cirque d’Hiver with me. I told him no. She filed a complaint.
So, I was told, she was under the influence. But we are all under the influence. I myself am under influence: my DNA, family, society, money… If she was under influence, it was under her own influence, she was never under my influence.“
“Monsieur Depardieu is not the protector of women he claims to be”
Statements which strongly provoked a reaction from the plaintiff’s lawyer. Asked by France Info regarding this letter, Maître Carine Durrieu-Diebolt said:shocked and scandalized because Monsieur Depardieu says he is exposing his truth, but it is certainly not Charlotte’s truth [Arnould] and it will certainly not be the one that will be retained by justice“.
The lawyer adds: “Charlotte’s truth is to say that she came at his invitation because he asked her how she was because they knew each other. We have the impression when reading it that it is about an anonymous woman“.
It will be up to the courts to decide.
She specifies: “She was a friend’s daughter who he carried on his lap when she was a baby, so there was a bond of trust and paternal respect towards her. He was the one who invited her to see how she was doing and in those circumstances, you don’t expect to be subjected to sexual acts after ten minutes..”
Master Carine Durrieu-Diebolt resumes “sexual acts that were committed by surprise, we have videos. He recognizes sexual acts“. (…) “Mr. Depardieu is not the protector of women that he claims to be when he is accused by 15 women of sexual violence and he says that he is neither a rapist nor a predator, that will be up to the courts to decide. decide“.