She claims "peace" for her husband.
In an interview broadcast on Sunday in the program "Sept à Huit" on TF 1, and for the first time, actress Emmanuelle Seigner, wife of director Roman Polanski, wanted to publicly defend her spouse, accused of several sexual assaults.
Describing a pariah life for her director husband, the French actress recounts the months of house arrest for her family in their chalet in Gstaad, Switzerland, deplores the treatment of the media, the paparazzi, but also the notorious effects, according to her, from the #MeToo movement.
"There are very good things in #MeToo, it's very good that speech is freed up," she said to journalist Audrey Crespo-Mara.
“If we have experienced rape, incest, terrible things, it is very very important that women can speak and be heard.
Nevertheless, we are witnessing a lot of excesses, a lot of abuse, lies, which discredit these victims and do them a disservice.
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“It was a very permissive time”
One of the first scandals to have targeted Roman Polanski dates back to a sexual relationship he had with Samantha Gailey, a 13-year-old American teenager, in 1977, and for which he was arrested in 2009. A report which is explained by different mores, according to Emmanuelle Seigner.
Thirteen, “yes, it's young, of course, but it was a very permissive time.
The relationship to age, too, has changed a lot.
We rented the Lolita, we celebrated it.
So me, having started modeling at 14, it was not a story that shocked me.
We are not obliged to applaud this time, but it was like that”, explains the wife of Roman Polanski, who tells his story and that of the director in a book entitled “A burnt life”, to be published on 26 october.
Today, Samantha Gailey and Roman Polanski “have a really, really good relationship, they send each other e-mails.
She can't take this victim status anymore.
She says it, repeats it but no one cares, ”says Emmanuelle Seigner, 56 years old.
Castigating the weight of public opinion, social networks and the media, the French actress also attacked feminist activists who strongly condemned the honors given to Roman Polanski at the 2020 Césars. It's a delirium, it's madness, but the world, sometimes, goes crazy ", judged Emmanuelle Seigner, saying that she did not understand either the stunt of actress Adèle Haenel against her husband. .
“All the young girls wanted to sleep with him”
One thing is certain for the French actress: Roman Polanski, 33 years her senior, cannot be guilty of rape, while several testimonies of sexual assault have emerged in recent years.
“When I met my husband, all the women wanted to sleep with him,” she says.
“All the young girls wanted to sleep with him.
It was crazy stuff.
What was crazy.
He was 52 but he looked like he was 30, he was a great director so he was very attractive, and I don't think he needed to rape anyone.
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From now on, the director is seen as a pariah, describes the actress, who says she also suffers from the pressure of public opinion.
“It's awful because he can't edit a film, actors are advised not to act in his films.
Myself, I am blacklisted in France, ”she assures.
“The man I live with is not the person I hear about at all,” insisted the actress.
At 89, Roman Polanski, still considered a fugitive, can only travel to France, Switzerland and Poland.
“He is bruised, he saw it very badly.
(…) Let him be left alone, let people take care of the real predators, people who are a danger to society, let him be left alone, ”thundered Emmanuelle Seigner.