French actor Gérard Depardieu spent most of Monday being questioned in police custody. The actor was arrested on the morning of the same day in connection with allegations of sexually assaulting two women. In the evening, the AP agency, citing the actor’s legal representative, said that he had already been released from police custody.
The station BFM TV reported this morning that the 75-year-old actor was summoned for questioning in the case of two women who accuse him of sexual assault during the filming of films in 2014 and 2021. One of the most famous living French actors has long denied guilt.
According to BFM TV, the detention began at 8:00 a.m., and the actor’s lawyer announced its end shortly before 6:30 p.m., according to AFP. By law, the police can detain a suspect in France for 24 hours and possibly extend the detention to 48 hours. But that was clearly not necessary. “Police custody is over. He is no longer being held at the police station,” AP quoted lawyer Christian Saint-Palais as saying in the evening.
In March, a woman filed a criminal complaint once morest the actor, according to which the sexual assault happened in September 2021 during the filming of Les volets verts (The Green Shutters), where the woman worked as a set designer. She claims that Depardieu brutally grabbed her and kneaded her waist, stomach and breasts. The attack was interrupted by the actor’s security. The now 53-year-old claims Depardieu held her with “tremendous force” and insulted her, calling her a “slut” for the rest of the shoot.
The second accusation, which, according to BFM TV, was also the subject of questioning at the police station in Paris, relates to an incident that, according to the woman’s statement, happened on the set of the short film Magicien et les Siamois (The Magician and the Siamese) in 2014. At the time, the 24-year-old assistant asked the actor explicit sexual proposals and Depardieu touched her in her private parts, according to her.
Similar reports have been filed once morest Depardieu by several women. Some notifications were postponed by the French judiciary because they were time-barred.
More regarding Depardieu’s cases
Last December, the actor in the open letters around six dozen French artists took part. Among the signatories is, for example, his actor colleague Pierre Richard or the singer and former first lady of France Carla Bruniová. The artists are decrying the flood of hatred that they say has descended on Depardieu despite the presumption of innocence, and write that cutting him off from the world of film would be the death of art.
