Advertisement

French actor Gérard Depardieu faces new sexual assault allegations

French actor Gérard Depardieu faces new sexual assault allegations

French actor Gérard Depardieu has been accused of sexual assault or harassment by 13 women, according to an investigation by news website Mediapart.

The women, using pseudonyms or their real names, claim the star groped them, put his hands in their underwear and made obscene remarks, according to the site. These incidents are alleged to have happened over the past two decades on film and TV sets or in public places.

A lawyer for Mr Depardieu, 74, said he "formally denies all the charges which may fall under criminal law".

The actor is already accused by the actress Charlotte Arnould, a case in which he was indicted for rape and sexual assault in December 2020. The actress, who is not among the thirteen women who have testified for Mediapart, claims to have been raped in 2018, at the Parisian home of Gérard Depardieu. She was 22 years old at the time.

Among the thirteen women who testified to Mediapart, nine accused the 74-year-old actor of sexual assault, particularly on the set of films.

This is the case of a 24-year-old extra at the time of the alleged events.

"Without warning, Gérard Depardieu put his hand under my dress," she says. She assures that she pushed him away. "But he continued, he became aggressive, he tried to pull my panties apart and to finger me."

Another, Sarah Brooks was 20 when she met the actor on the set of the series Marseille in 2015. In Mediapart, she explains that Gérard Depardieu put his hand in her shorts, emitting "a big weird grunt". She says she "withdrew her hand once", but the actor put it back "in [her] panties", trying to "touch her buttocks". On the set of season 2 of Marseille, the star is said to have "caressed [the] thigh" of Graziella Jullian, a 47-year-old extra.

The Paris prosecutor's office told the AFP news agency today (Wednesday 12 April) that it had "not received any new complaint to date".