The actress Judith Godrèche questioned on France Inter, Thursday February 8, the behavior towards her of the director Jacques Doillon, when he was directing her and she was 15 years old, the day after the opening by the justice of an investigation against another filmmaker whom she accuses, Benoît Jacquot.
Judith Godrèche accuses Jacques Doillon, now 79 years old, of sexual abuse on two occasions at the end of the 1980s. She first mentions events which took place “in the house of Jane [Birkin, then partner of the filmmaker], in the office of Jacques Doillon”. “No one saw it and I didn’t tell anyone about it,” she says. The actress then returns to the set of the film La Fille de 15 ans, by Jacques Doillon, released in 1989, and in which she plays the main role, alongside Melvil Poupaud and Jacques Doillon himself. At the time, Judith Godrèche was 15 years old and the director was around forty. “On the set, it was mind-blowing,” she says.
She explains that Jacques Doillon “fired the actor” to put himself in his place and play the character of Willy, the father of the heroine’s boyfriend who gradually falls in love with her. “All of a sudden, he decides that there is a love scene, a sex scene between him and me,” says Judith Godrèche. She explains that for this scene, “45 takes” were done. “I take off my sweater, I’m shirtless, he gropes me, makes out with me,” she describes. She also specifies that Jane Birkin [Jacques Doillon’s companion at the time] was present on the filming of this scene, “an extremely painful situation for her”, according to Judith Godrèche.
Open investigation targeting Benoît Jacquot for rape of a minor
Judith Godrèche’s statements follow a complaint on her part, filed Tuesday February 7 with the minors’ protection brigade, for rape of a minor against the director Benoît Jacquot, who directed it and maintained a relationship for several years with her from the age of 14. The Paris public prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation into these facts.
According to information from Le Monde, Mr. Jacquot, 77 years old and whose next film is expected, “firmly denies the allegations and accusations.” The actress and the filmmaker, twenty-five years her senior, began their relationship in the spring of 1986, when she was just 14 years old and taking her first steps in the cinema. They lived openly together, even buying an apartment in Paris, until their separation in 1992. “All of the facts denounced took place between 1986 and 1992,” confirmed the Paris prosecutor’s office.
After leaving for the United States, the actress made her return to French screens at the end of 2023, and sheds harsh light on her relationship with Benoît Jacquot, which her parents did not in any way prevent at the time. , in an Arte series in the form of a testimony, Icon of French Cinema. She had never before brought the director to justice for these facts, which appear prescribed.
In around ten stories published overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday on Instagram, Ms. Godrèche repeatedly describes Mr. Jacquot as a “pervert” who “tirelessly puts her in the place of the non-existent object”. At the beginning of January, in another story, the 51-year-old actress said that “the little girl in [her] can no longer keep silent about this name” and spoke of “control” and, again, “perversion”.
