Following Gérard Depardieu’s open letter, in which the latter declares that he has never attacked a woman, actress Anouk Grinberg gives Elle magazine an edifying testimony on the actor’s behavior.
Last October 1, Le Figaro published an open letter from Gérard Depardieu in which the latter defended himself from accusations of sexual violence to which he was the subject, in particular that of the young actress and dancer Charlotte Arnould.
The latter accuses the actor of having raped her twice at his home in 2018. Presumed innocent, Gérard Depardieu is also accused by 15 other women of sexual violence.
THE magazine She has just published the testimony of actress Anouk Grinberg recently seen in the casting of L’innocent and La Nuit du 12. She explains that she felt obliged to testify and provide her support to Charlotte Arnould.
Anouk Grinberg knows Charlotte Arnould personally and toured with the actor in Merci la vie in 1991 and in Les Volets verts in 2020. She was the companion of the director Bertrand Blier, with whom the actor toured 9 times.
Everyone who worked with Depardieu in the cinema knows that he attacks women.
She declared to the magazine: “I can no longer be silent. Everyone who worked with Depardieu in the cinema knows that he attacks women. The silence of this environment is deafening, demeaning for our art and must end“.
The magazine specifies that many cinema personalities have declined their request for an interview concerning the “Depardieu affair”.
For Anouk Grinberg, Gérard Depardieu’s open letter is “an insult to the victims who suffer because of his deviant behavior.“According to her, it’s about”a defense strategy to flirt with the crowd and make it your ally.”
“Charlotte is alone against everyone. This is why we must move forward as a group. That’s why I’m coming out of the woods“, she adds before delivering this edifying testimony.
“I knew him all these years when I was in a relationship with Bertrand Blier and when I filmed Merci la vie with him. Depardieu was a bit part of my daily life. When he says in this letter that he does not never attacked a woman, I saw him do it all this time!
Verbally, physically. I saw him put his hands on women’s buttocks, touch their breasts, their genitals while joking. I heard him talk all day about their pussy, about how he would like to suck them. All day ! And no one ever said anything.“
I saw him put his hands on women’s buttocks, touch their breasts, their genitals while joking.
She then explains: “I was Blier’s partner, I was relatively untouchable. But I was not spared at all from his verbal attacks. And then, it amused him a lot when Blier asked him to mime or say dirty things to me while we were acting out scenes.
He and Blier incited each other to humiliate women and laugh about it, and the team pledged allegiance, also laughing to please the kings. At that point in my life I had no choice but to laugh with the pack. (…)“
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Gérard Depardieu
Anouk Grinberg also regrets that the world of cinema acts like “a family with all that can be pathological, even cruel: if someone has suffered sexual violence within a clan, the clan will protect the aggressor and turn against the victim.”
Concerning omerta in cinema, the actress then adds: “Men protect each other. They are overwhelmed by what is happening, by the words that are being released. I have never seen men intervene to curb Depardieu’s deviant behavior. Neither have any women .
Fanny Ardant, who knew Charlotte, said that she took revenge out of love’s spite, but where did her humanity go too? What I say about Depardieu does not take away from the fact that at certain moments we watch him play and we see a grace, an immense knowledge of the human soul. How is this divide possible?
But when the industry says “Yes, but he’s a huge actor”, that’s not the point.”