Actor Gérard Depardieu, February 18, 2018 in Marseille (AFP / ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT)
The complaint by actress Hélène Darras, who accused actor Gérard Depardieu of having sexually assaulted her during a film shoot in 2007, was closed at the end of December for prescription, the Paris prosecutor’s office said on Monday, confirming information from RTL.
Hélène Darras could not immediately be reached. Neither do the lawyers for the French cinema giant.
The complaint dates from September 10. The actress, who had already testified before the courts and in Mediapart, thus “wanted to respond to the defense which minimizes our denunciations by saying that these are +only+ testimonies”, she explained to AFP at the beginning of December, making allusion to the multiple accusations published in the press against Gérard Depardieu, who contests.
“It took me a year to go from testimony to complaint,” she also confided. “Going through the door of the police station, telling a police officer that your private parts were touched, it’s not easy, it takes time to think about it,” she added.
The investigative magazine “Complément d’investigation” (France 2) revealed the complaint of Ms. Darras, who gave her story: during filming, Gérard Depardieu “passes his hand on my hips, on my buttocks” then “me said bluntly: +Do you want to come up to my dressing room?+”. The actress tells him “no” but “it doesn’t change anything”, she says: “Between takes, he will continue to grope me”.
In a separate case, Gérard Depardieu was indicted in Paris on December 16, 2020 for rape and sexual assault after a complaint from another actress, Charlotte Arnould, who denounced two rapes at the actor’s Parisian home at the end of August 2018. .
Ms. Arnould’s lawyer, Me Carine Durrieu-Diebolt, recently wrote to the Paris prosecutor’s office to ask it to analyze the report from “Complément d’investigation”, according to the public prosecutor confirming BFM TV.
The lawyer believes that the remarks made by Mr. Depardieu in front of the camera are likely to have a criminal classification, which the prosecution is currently analyzing.
In the viewfinder: a new video shot in 2018 during a trip with writer Yann Moix to North Korea, where we hear Gérard Depardieu making gestures and throat noises mimicking the sexual act and making comments who shocked.
In a stud farm, the French cinema giant states in particular that “women love to ride horses (because) their clits rub” on the saddle (…), they enjoy a lot”. And continues: “It’s are big sluts.”