In the “context” of accusations of rape and sexual assault to which he is the subject, Gérard Depardieu “no longer accepts any project”, announced his agent, Bertrand de Labbey, Monday October 2. The actor was to lend his voice to The Most Precious Goods, which tells the story of a couple of Polish lumberjacks who, during the Second World War, rescue a baby who fell from a train taking deportees to the camp. Auschwitz.
Initially and “by mutual agreement, Gérard Depardieu and Michel Hazanavicius decided to renounce [his] participation in [the] next film” of the director, he added, confirming information from the daily Le Parisien .
The actor has been indicted since 2020 for “rape” and “sexual assault” on actress Charlotte Arnould, who denounced two rapes at the star’s Parisian home at the end of August 2018. In the summer of 2020, she obtained that the investigation, first closed by the Paris prosecutor’s office in June 2019, be entrusted to an investigating judge.
Actor Gérard Depardieu debunked these accusations against him on Sunday October 1. In an open letter published by Le Figaro, he denounces a “lynching” orchestrated by the “media court” and claiming to be “neither rapist nor predator”. “Never, ever have I abused a woman,” he wrote. “I can no longer consent to what I hear, what I have read about myself for several months. I thought I didn’t care, but no, actually no. This all gets to me. Worse still, turns me off.”
In April, Médiapart revealed the testimonies of thirteen women accusing Gérard Depardieu of sexual violence. The Paris prosecutor’s office indicated at the time of these revelations that it had “not received any new complaints to date”. The prosecution also specified that the investigation opened in July 2020 following the actress’ complaint was continuing.