“Emmanuelle Seigner arrives distressed, but determined to talk about the arrest of her husband Roman Polanski, his imprisonment, accusations of rape and sexual assault at the time of MeToo, their life since.”
On Sunday October 16, the magazine
Sept à Huit
gave the floor to actress Emmanuelle Seigner, who returns for the first time to the cases that are pursuing the 89-year-old filmmaker.
The first accusation against Roman Polanski dates back to 1977: he is accused of drugging and raping Samantha Geimer, 13 at the time, in Los Angeles.
“Thirteen years old is young of course, but it was a very permissive time”, replies Emmanuelle Seigner when journalist Audrey Crespo-Mara reminds her of these facts.
“The relationship to age has also changed a lot.
At the time, we praised the lolita, we celebrated it.
So me, having started my modeling career at 14, it was not a story that shocked me, ”adds the one who will publish A Burning Life
(1) on October 26
, a book in which she delivers her truth on the affair. Polansky.
As a reminder, in 1977, after having pleaded guilty to “illegal sexual intercourse with a minor”, Roman Polanski spent 42 days in prison, before leaving the United States when a judge seemed about to reconsider the sentence, and the sentenced to several years in prison.
In September 2009, the case took a turn when the director of The
Pianist
, who was to be honored at the Zurich Film Festival for all of his work, was arrested in Switzerland.
Roman Polanski spent two months in prison until the courts accepted his release on bail of 4.5 million Swiss francs and house arrest in his chalet in Gstaad, equipped with an electronic bracelet, for eight months.
Today, despite numerous procedural disputes, he is still the subject of an international arrest warrant issued by the United States and has found himself, on several occasions, under threat of extradition.
Read the fileAll you need to know about the Polanski affair
In video, Emmanuelle Seigner defends her husband Roman Polanski in
Seven to Eight
"He didn't need to rape anyone"
In this fifteen-minute interview, Emmanuelle Seigner ardently supports Roman Polanski, the father of her two children Morgane (born in 1993) and Elvis (born in 1998).
“When I met my husband, all the women wanted to sleep with him, it was crazy, it was crazy.
He was 52, he looked like he was 30, he was a great director, so he was very attractive and I think he didn't need to rape anyone, ”replies the 56-year-old actress. , lamenting that the presumption of innocence is today "totally flouted".
Mathilde Seigner's sister then insists on the guilt that eats away at her husband on a daily basis.
“He feels guilty vis-à-vis us,” she adds.
“Not guilty of having slept with a 13-year-old girl at the time?” Audrey Crespo-Mara relaunches.
“Of course he feels guilty about that.
Plus, they have a really, really good relationship.
They send each other e-mails.
In fact, [Samantha Geimer], she can't take this victimhood anymore.
I don't think she wants that at all.
This is why she constantly asks for the charges to be dropped.
She says it and repeats it but no one cares.
“I am blacklisted in France”
Emmanuelle Seigner also denounces the "hunting of the paparazzi": "They were always in front of my house until the day I beat one up, with a helmet", she admits, regretting "a world that is going crazy" in reference to certain feminist activists and the abuses caused according to her by the MeToo movement.
“It is very good that speech is freed: if we have experienced rape, incest, or terrible things, it is important that women can speak and that they are heard.
Nevertheless, we are witnessing a lot of excesses, abuses, lies which discredit these victims and which do them a disservice”, she laments.
Result: Roman Polanski is seen as an outcast, according to the actress.
"It's awful because he can't edit a film, actors are advised not to act in his films."
She also assures that these cases have repercussions on her career: “I myself am blacklisted in France.”
“He is bruised”
"The man I live with is not at all the person I hear about," continues Emmanuelle Seigner.
“He is bruised, he saw it very badly.
(…) Let him be left alone, let people take care of real predators, people who are a danger to society and let him be left alone, ”wondered the actress, who confided n never considered separating from the director.
“I have no reason to leave him: he is a very good husband and a very good father.
He has always been lovely with me and my family.
Why would I leave him?
I have no reason, except cowardice.
I have a lot of flaws but I'm not a coward."
Hélène Devynck, who publicly accuses Patrick Poivre d'Arvor of having raped her, strongly condemned on Twitter Emmanuelle Seigner's speech on TF1: “The irrefutable presumption of consent.
The boulevard of impunity.
To read also "If I had not worked at TF1, I would not have been raped": Hélène Devynck returns to the PPDA affair in her book
Impunity
Same story on the side of journalist Cécile Delarue, member of the group of complainants against Patrick Poivre d'Arvor.
“This ability to know better than the people concerned what they may have experienced, felt, wanted.
And to decide that justice is for others.
Prefer the media court, because it's so much easier when you already have all the codes, all the weapons, ”she gets annoyed.
Roman Polanski: numerous rape accusations
Among the women who accuse Roman Polanski, a woman, identified as
"Robin"
, accused him in August 2017 of sexual assault when she was 16, in 1973. In September 2017,
Renate Langer
, a former actress, has filed a new rape complaint, claiming she was assaulted in 1972 in Gstaad, Switzerland, when she was 15.
In October 2017, an American artist, Marianne Barnard, also accused the director of assaulting her in 1975, when she was 10 years old.
In November 2019, a Frenchwoman, Valentine Monnier, also accused him of having raped her in 1975 in Switzerland when she was 18 years old.
Before that, in 2010, actress Charlotte Lewis had claimed to have been "sexually abused" by the filmmaker in her Paris apartment in the early 1980s, when she was 16 years old.
These accusations are now all time-barred and had been disputed by Roman Polanski in an interview with Paris Match in December 2019: “For years,
(1)
A burned life
, Eds de L'Observatoire, 192 pages, 18€.