French actor Gérard Depardieu is in police custody as investigators probe two separate allegations of sexual assault by two women who worked with the controversial actor on film sets in 2014 and 2021, according to French media reports.
Depardieu, 75, has faced sexual assault allegations from more than a dozen women since 2018, blighting his reputation as one of France’s most well-known actors. Depardieu starred in The Man in the Iron Mask, The Life of Pi and Green Card, and was nominated for an Oscar for his leading role in 1991’s Cyrano de Bergerac.
French broadcaster BFMTV was the first to report on Depardieu’s detention by police. He was summoned to a Paris police station on Monday morning to answer questions related to a sexual assault investigation, the broadcaster learned from a law enforcement source. Agence France-Presse later reported the same, also citing a police source.
Gérard Depardieu’s lawyer Christian Saint-Palais answers a call outside a Paris police station on Monday, April 29, 2024 amid reports the actor was summoned by police for questioning.
AP Photo/Michel Euler
Investigators are reportedly looking into allegations that Depardieu groped a set decorator while filming Les Volets Verts in 2021 and groped and made obscene remarks toward a production assistant in 2014 on the set of The Magician and the Siamese.
The set decorator, a 53-year-old woman, filed her complaint against Depardieu on Feb. 23, BFMTV reported at the time. She claims that she was walking down a hallway past Depardieu, who was sitting down, when the actor grabbed her with his legs in a vice-like grip and refused to let her go. He then touched her without consent and made sexual remarks. Another person on set had to extract the woman from Depardieu’s legs.
On Jan. 9, the production assistant filed her sexual assault complaint, alleging that Depardieu groped her at his mansion in Paris before filming for The Magician and the Siamese began. The woman, 24 at the time, said Depardieu groped her again and made sexual propositions on the first day of filming, according to French newspaper Le Courrier de l’Ouest.
Depardieu has not yet made a public statement on the allegations but he has previously denied other claims of sexual assault. In a 2023 open letter, Depardieu wrote: “Never, ever have I abused a woman.”
These latest accusations come after a wave of similar allegations were made against Depardieu starting in 2018, when then-22-year-old French actor Charlotte Arnould accused the Cyrano de Bergerac star of raping her. The case was initially dismissed, but Arnould refiled her complaint and Depardieu was charged with rape in 2020. The case is still ongoing.
A stream of women came forward after Arnould filed her complaint. In 2019, former actor Emmanuelle Debever claimed that Depardieu groped her when they were alone in a carriage on the set of the 1983 movie Danton. Debever died by suicide last year at age 60, the same day that a TV documentary about Depardieu’s sexual assault allegations aired.
In December 2023, Depardieu faced a second official complaint of sexual assault, this time by actor Hélène Darras, who claimed Depardieu groped her on the set of the 2007 film Disco. The case was dropped in January by French prosecutors because it did not fall within the statute of limitations.
The Quebec government stripped Depardieu of his Order of Quebec award, also in December 2023, after the actor made “shocking” comments in a documentary released that month. Depardieu was filmed making obscene sexual remarks and gestures while film crews covered his visit to North Korea in 2018. He is the first person to have an Order of Quebec removed.
© 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.