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French actor Gerard Depardieu is in police custody as investigators investigate 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 allegations of sexual assault from more than a dozen women since 2018, tarnishing his reputation as one of France’s best-known actors. Depardieu starred The man in the iron mask, The life of Pi and Green cardand was nominated for an Oscar for his leading role in 1991 Cyrano de Bergerac.
French broadcaster BFMTV was the first to report Depardieu’s arrest 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 this, also citing a police source.
Gerard Depardieu’s lawyer Christian Saint-Pala answers a call outside a police station in Paris Monday, April 29, 2024 amid reports that the actor has been summoned by police for questioning.
AP Photo/Michelle Euler
Investigators are reportedly looking into allegations that Depardieu groped a set designer during filming Green blinds in 2021 and groped and made obscene comments towards a production assistant in 2014 on the set of The Magician and the Siamese.
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The set designer, a 53-year-old woman, filed her complaint against Depardieu on February 23, BFMTV reported at the time. She claims she was walking down the hall past Depardieu, who was sitting, when the actor grabbed her by the legs in a vice-like grip and refused to let her go. He then touched her without consent and made sexual comments. Another person on set had to pull the woman from Depardieu’s feet.
On January 9, the production assistant filed her sexual assault complaint, alleging that Depardieu groped her at his Paris mansion before filming for The Magician and the Siamese Started. The woman, 24 at the time, said Depardieu groped her again and made sexual advances on the first day of filming, according to French newspaper Le Courrier de l’Ouest.
Depardieu has yet to issue a public statement about the allegations but he has previously denied other allegations of sexual assault. In an open letter from 2023, Depardieu wrote: “I have never, ever abused a woman.”
These latest accusations come after a wave of similar accusations were leveled against Depardieu starting in 2018, when 22-year-old French actor Charlotte Arnold accused Cyrano de Bergerac A star who raped her. The case was initially dismissed, but Arnold refiled her complaint and Depardieu was charged with rape in 2020. The case is still ongoing.
An influx of women arose after Arnold filed her complaint. In 2019, former actor Emmanuelle Devbar claimed that Depardieu groped her when they were alone in a carriage on the set of the 1983 film Denton. Debber died by suicide last year at the age of 60, on the same day that a documentary about Depardieu’s sexual assault allegations aired.
In December 2023, Depardieu faced a second formal sexual assault complaint, this time by actress Helena Daras, who claimed Depardieu groped her on the set of the 2007 film disco. The case was dismissed in January by French prosecutors because it did not fall under 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 photographed making obscene sexual comments and gestures while camera crews covered his visit to North Korea in 2018. He is the first person to be removed from the Order of Quebec.
© 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
