New allegations of sexual abuse against Gérard Depardieu: the investigative site Mediapart reveals the testimonies of thirteen women who accuse the 74-year-old symbol of French cinema of abuse and violence of a sexual nature.
But he goes back to rejecting everything.
Depardieu has already been under investigation since last year for "rape" and "sexual assaults" and these new testimonies, which would concern abuses perpetrated between 2004 and 2022, during the filming of 11 films or TV series, add to an already particularly complex.
Initially denounced by the actress, Charlotte Arnould, for abuses dating back to August 2018, Depardieu has always rejected the accusations through his team of Parisian lawyers.
In the investigation, Mediapart takes up, in particular, "thirteen testimonies of women who claim to have suffered inappropriate sexual gestures or statements by the actor, of varying severity, on the set of eleven films or TV series released between 2004 and 2022 or in external places, but also the story of several witnesses".
According to the investigative site, three of these women have entrusted their testimony to the judges investigating him but none of them wanted to formally denounce him.
"Some - writes Mediapart - have given up, others have not even thought about it. Reason? The feeling that their testimonies would weigh little in the face of this monument of French cinema. And that they could also mark the end of their career" in cinema or on TV .
Among the testimonies, that of the actress Sarah Brooks, who met Depardieu on the set of 'Marseille', the first French Netflix series, in 2015. In her first film experience, the actress at the time twenty years old plays the role of a Lolita seminude.
She told Mediapart that when it was time to take a photo of her with the whole production, Depardieu slipped a hand into her mini-shorts, making her "a big bizarre gasp".
She adds that she took the actor's hand "for the first time", but he insisted by putting it back "into the underpants" of the young woman and trying to touch her butt.
"I took it off him a second time and said aloud: there is Gégé (Depardieu) who reaches out in my shorts".
At which point he replied: "
So?
I thought you wanted to break into the world of cinema?" "Everyone started laughing - continues the actress in her testimony to journalist Marine Turchi - I was feeling terrible: he was super humiliating ".
Similar testimonies have come from other actresses or extras and they all agree in saying that every time the cast, directors or various productions have paid little if any attention to the presumed victims, as if Depardieu were untouchable in France, a sort of sacred monster of the cinema protected by a wall of silence.
With the exception of director Fabien Onteniente, who confirms that he has called the actor to order for his more than reprehensible behavior with respect to various extras victims of groping on the set of 'Turf'.
Through his lawyers, the Franco-Russian actor (Vladimir Putin granted him honorary citizenship in 2013) strongly defends himself.
And he goes back to "formally denying all the charges of a criminal nature".