She committed suicide by throwing herself into the Seine, under the weight of the harassment that she still hasn't forgotten 40 years later. French actress Emmanuelle Debever, 60, took her own life on December 7, the same day that the program “Complément d'enquête: La chute de l'ogre” was broadcast on French public broadcaster France 2. The downfall of the ogre on Gerard Depardieu and all the allegations of rape and sexual violence of which he would have been the protagonist.
It was probably Depardieu himself who, in 1982, during the filming of Andrzej Wajda's film Danton, molested the then very young (19 year old) actress who played his wife Louison. It was Debever herself who, in a post on Facebook on June 5, 2019, reported what happened after an investigation against the actor for rape and sexual violence was dropped. Debever had written a bitter comment on social media: “Mr Depardieu. Acquitted today of charges of rape and sexual violence. No comment,” adding, “The holy monster had allowed himself to do things and take advantage of the intimacy of a carriage during this filming. He put his hand under my skirt to, he said, feel better since I rejected him.
The actress was one of the first to publicly accuse Depardieu of sexual harassment, but her statement went almost unnoticed even though there was already a precedent. That of actress Charlotte Arnould, who had filed the first complaint against Depardieu for rape the year before. Although her popularity was long gone and few remembered her, Debever gained fame in 1982 with a role in the television series Joëlle Mazart. Then she gained attention with a role in another series, “Médecins de nuit” and in the films “Quidam” by Gérard Max and “Un jeu brutal” by Jean-Claude Brisseau. He had worked with Depardieu several times throughout his career. News of Debever's death was shared on the National Audiovisual Institute's X account. The suicide methods were instead revealed by a journalist from Libération. At least 16 women have accused the actor with a dual French and Russian passport of sexual abuse. Depardieu has been under investigation since 2020 for the rape of Charlotte Arnould and was recently accused by actress Hélène Darras in connection with an alleged sexual assault in 2007 during the filming of the film Disco.
The investigation, broadcast by France 2, unearthed new embarrassing footage from 2018 when the actor traveled to North Korea to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Pyongyang regime and bombarded his own North Korean interpreter with sexual advances and jokes even for a ten-year-old girl, he gave him credit. “Gérard Depardieu, a monster who is no longer truly holy,” is the merciless commentary in the Belgian newspaper Le Soir in an article about the actor’s forays into North Korea. Meanwhile, still in Belgium, Frédéric Masquestiaux (Fredo), a 48-year-old official Depardieu lookalike, has made a radical decision. After the insults on social media, writes the website La Dernière Heure, he decided “to no longer be his double”. “This – specifies Masquestiaux in the message published on Facebook – does not change the friendship that I have for Gérard, I am not one to condemn him.”
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