Animal grunts, an obvious obsession with sex, shocking remarks: An investigative French television program set to be broadcast on Thursday, November 7, reveals disturbing, never-before-released footage of Gérard Depardieu crossing boundaries, constantly drifting into sexual territory whenever he's in the presence of women.
Under investigation since 2020 for suspected rape and sexual assault on the actress Charlotte Arnould – the investigation is ongoing – the actor has not spoken publicly since April 2023, when Mediapart published the testimony of 13 women who said they were his victims on shoots between 2004 and 2022.
Depardieu finally broke his silence by publishing an open letter in Le Figaro on October 1, in which he denounced a "lynching" orchestrated by the "media tribunal." This article is one of the documents on which the latest episode of the France 2 investigative show Complément d'Enquête repeatedly relies, as a counterpoint to the accusations.
The first revelation was provided in never-before-seen footage – "that you were never meant to see," insists the narrator – of Depardieu's journey to North Korea in September 2018. He was invited by French journalist Yann Moix to attend the celebrations the dictatorship's 70th anniversary.
Moix took the opportunity to shoot a documentary, which he had supposedly given up on releasing as a result of the sexist, vulgar and crude remarks made by Depardieu. After viewing 18 hours of footage shot over six days, the TV show is releasing the most vulgar extracts.
Complément d'Enquête also obtained four new testimonies from women accusing the actor of sexual aggression. Stage manager Marylène Andrin recounts her "trauma" (a hand to the buttocks, in particular) during the filming, in 2009, of Diamant 13, when she was 23 and he was 60. Sarah Brooks speaks of when she was aged 20 on the set of the Netflix series Marseille in 2015 and Depardieu sexually assaulted her. Hélène Darras says she was sexually assaulted during the filming of Disco in 2007. During the shoot, Depardieu "ran his hand over my hips, my butt," she says. Darras decided to press charges on September 10, 2023, in the wake of being interviewed for this investigation.
The most speaking time is given to an interview with young French actress Charlotte Arnould, who looks back at the two sexual assaults she says she suffered at the hands of Depardieu, on August 7 and 13, 2018. She pressed charges for rape against the actor 11 days later. The television program also gives a voice to those who come to Depardieu's defense, such as his brother, Alain Depardieu, his ex-wife Elisabeth Depardieu, two childhood pals, and Josée Dayan, who has known him for 26 years: "You can say anything about Gérard, except that he's a rapist."
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