French actor Gérard Depardieu will be tried in October 2024 for the sexual assault of two women, the Paris prosecutor's office said on Monday, April 29. The announcement came shortly after the release of Depardieu from several hours of police custody at the Paris judicial police headquarters.
French police had questioned the 75-year-old screen legend earlier over allegations by two women that he assaulted them – one on a film set in 2021 and the other on another shoot in 2014, a source close to the case said, confirming a report by the BFMTV news channel.
The first woman accuses him of having assaulted her when she was a member of the crew on the 2022 feature film Les Volets Verts (The Green Shutters). The set designer, who filed a formal complaint in February, told investigative website Mediapart that Depardieu grabbed her as she left the set in a private hotel in Paris, groping her and making obscene comments, before his bodyguards removed him.
The second woman has alleged he groped her "all over" and made "inappropriate" remarks while she was an assistant on the set of 2015 film Le magician et le Siamois ("The Magician and the Siamese"), she told the regional newspaper Le Courrier de l'Ouest.
In a separate case, Depardieu was charged with rape in 2020 and forced to put his career on hold last fall as allegations mounted against him.