Russian artist Piotr Pavlenski and his partner Alexandra de Taddeo were indicted this week and placed under judicial supervision. The duo is at the heart of the sex videos scandal which pushed Benjamin Griveaux, the LREM candidate for mayor of Paris, to throw in the towel last weekend. The investigation will notably determine if the activist, who broadcast the sextape, acted alone, or if it is a manipulation intended to destabilize Emmanuel Macron.
A case reminiscent of another, which occurred across the Channel almost 60 years ago. For the first time, the press was released. She had been kept in a corset of convenience and hypocrisy for too long, so as not to throw herself eagerly into this affair. Sex, lies, suspicion of spying: all the ingredients for the perfect scandal. With the added bonus, a dazzling cast. A prominent minister, John Profumo; a depraved artist, Stephen Ward; a Moscow agent, Captain Ivanov. And all that beautiful linen in the same bed: that of Christine Keeler, a 21-year-old stripper who is not shy.
An ingenuous rather than an intriguing
In the spring of 1963, Fleet Street, the headquarters of London's newspapers, was in turmoil. "A great tragedy of public life in Great Britain", takes offense, pursed lips, the "Times". "The slow and inevitable death of the upper classes", prophesies the "Mirror" with plebeian overtones, while the tabloids compete for touting titles where it is only a question of "shame", "moral vice" and " state matter ". Accused of bathing in the stupor of orgies, the establishment takes it for its rank. But it is on another prey that the press is most concerned. "Keeler, the shameless slut," dares the magazine "People". "Dragged head empty," insults another.
There is nothing intriguing about it. Christine Keeler is rather the ingenuous type, who understood that her advantageous plastic would perhaps offer her a less miserable life. She grew up in a disused wagon, in the heart of a ghetto. No water, no electricity, no luck: her stepfather - she will say later - sexually assaulted her at 12, she lost a baby at 17. To escape her fate, it is in London that she must go.
Christine finds a modeling job there in a clothes store. In the evening, she dances topless at Murray's, a cabaret in Soho where she meets Stephen Ward, the gratin's osteopath. From Winston Churchill to Liz Taylor and members of the royal family, his clientele has the appearance of a social directory. His golden hands do not only repair the bodies. They also paint, superb portraits of actors or political and royal gotha, like Prince Philip, the Queen's husband. But, beneath the varnish of the painting, there is the libertine, and a sort of pimp who organizes "parties" by turning down pretty little girls who hear their good life crunching.
A hot summer evening
On July 8, 1961, Christine - whom Ward takes under his wing and shelters - plays the naiads in the swimming pool of the superb property of Lord Astor, in the North-West of London. Legend has it that she was naked, like a few other mermaids on that hot summer night. It is in any case it that John Profumo, the Minister of War, notices. She is the only one, among all the guests, who does not know who this 46-year-old man with straight hair is, who came to the arm of his wife, the former actress Valérie Hobson, famous for having played in 1935 the "Bride of Frankenstein ". Jack, as his friends call him, manages to retrieve his phone number, contacts her and has a relationship with her for a few months, while the hug fire dies down a bit.
This is the only point that could bring them together. As he leaves the stream, Baron Profumo had only to let himself be carried by the current of the Thames: from the benches of Oxford to those of the Parliament of London where he was elected in 1940, at 25 years old , the youngest member of the country. After the war, from which he emerged unscathed and decorated, he returned to his seat as a deputy and gradually became the rising star of the Conservative Party, promised to the Foreign Office. But the ambitious is also very reckless. And it is an ordinary news item - a rejected lover of Christine, who shoots avenging shots on the facade of his home - which will burst the scandal and implode his so promising career.
Confidences on the pillow?
Because Scotland Yard and the press learn that Miss Keeler had an affair with Eugène Ivanov, a Soviet intelligence agent based in London. Rumors swell, Christine tells - for a fee - to a newspaper that she slept with the two men. In the middle of the cold war, a disaster! Did the Minister of War deliver secrets about the pillow? Are they already in the hands of Moscow?
These allegations will then be denied, but the press will give it their heart, ignoring the scruples which until then prevented it from publishing these kinds of "bombs". On March 22, Profumo, under pressure, swears to his peers that he had no "improper" relationship. But in early June, faced with the revelations that accumulate, he cracks in front of his wife during a getaway to Venice. On his return, he has no choice, because he lied in Parliament, the supreme sacrilege. He resigned from the MacMillan government, which would only survive him for a few months, swept away by the turmoil of the affair.
The rehabilitation of Profumo
For the first time, the tabloids pinned to their headlines an "untouchable" of the elite. This tenor of politics, he saw in a few weeks his reputation as surely crumpled as the satin sheets where he had carelessly risked it. Burned politician, "Jack" Profumo will definitively turn this page to offer his services within a charity organization, Toynbee Hall, in the East End of London. He will first dive in before becoming president, using his connections to raise funds with the help of his wife, who did not let him go during the ordeal. In 1975 Profumo was decorated for his social commitment and twenty years later, at a ceremony given for his 70th birthday, Margaret Thatcher called him a "national hero".
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At his death in 2006 at the age of 91, this man, whose name will nevertheless always keep the scent of scandal, is therefore rehabilitated. Christine Keeler will never have this chance. Until the end, the sensation gazettes will mock its faded beauty with as much glee as it once did, they began to denounce its poisonous charms. She died in December 2017, at 75, forever marked with the cruel seal of infamy.
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