The French actor Gérard Depardieu, who has been under investigation since 2020 for the rape and sexual assault of an actress, rejected the allegations against him on Sunday (October 1, 2023) and denounced a “lynching” by a “media court”.
“I can no longer accept what I have heard and read about myself over the past few months. I thought I wouldn’t care, but no. Everything concerns me,” wrote the 74-year-old actor in an open letter published in the newspaper Le Figaro.
The text, with echoes of a poem, represents the French film star’s first reaction since 13 new testimonies against him came to light in April, published by investigative media Mediapart.
In it, the actor stressed that he was “neither a rapist nor a predator” and claimed it was a “lynching” by a “media court.”
“I have never abused a woman,” he emphasized in the letter, in which he referred, without naming her, to Charlotte Arnould, the actress who reported him for two rapes in 2018.
“A woman came to my house for the first time with a light step and voluntarily went into my room. Now she says she was raped,” he alleged.
“There was never any coercion, violence or protests between us,” he said. “If she was obsessed with anything, it was herself, not me,” he added.
Depardieu was charged with “rape” and “sexual assault” on December 16, 2020, after the actress filed a complaint of two rapes in August 2018.
gs (afp, Le Figaro)