French actor Gerard Depardieu has been stripped of honours in France and abroad, and faces a new rape allegation from a Spanish author and journalist.
The fallout follows documentary Gerard Depardieu: The Fall Of The Ogre which aired in France on December 7 and featured footage of the actor making lewd comments to women in North Korea in 2018 and multiple accusations of sexual assault.
The Musée Grevin in Paris has removed a wax likeness of the actor that had been on display since 1981 over what they described as “the negative reactions of visitors”.
France’s culture minister Rima Abdul Malak said on current affairs programme C à Vous last week that a committee had been set up to determine whether the actor’s Legion of Honour medal, awarded in 1996, should be withdrawn.
In response, Depardieu’s lawyers said in a statement that the actor would voluntarily relinquish the honour and accused the minister of “dealing a further blow to an already dying presumption of innocence”.
On Wednesday evening (Dec 20), French president Emmanuel Macron weighed in on the same programme, calling the public campaign against the actor a “manhunt” and voicing his opposition at taking away the medal. “The Legion of Honour is an order that is not there to moralise,” said Macron, even though he did take steps to revoke the same honour from Harvey Weinstein in 2017.
The French culture minister’s move comes in the wake of Brussels revoking the actor’s Medal of Honour given to him by the city in 2018, Belgian municipality Estaimpuis removing his honourary citizen title and the National Order of Québec stripping him of a knighthood bestowed in 2002.
Some in the industry continue to rally to Depardieu’s defence, including actress Nathalie Baye who told France Inter: “I don’t know this man we’re talking about… I’ve worked with him a lot and I’ve never had any problems.”
Depardieu has not shot a film since 2021 and did not do press for his last film Umami which opened in May to a lacklustre 50,000 admissions. He is not publicly attached to any current film or TV projects.
Legal issues
According to Spanish media reports, author and journalist Ruth Baza filed a criminal complaint with police in Spain last week for an alleged rape that occurred in 1995 when she interviewed him in Paris for an article for Cinemania magazine at the then-headquarters of Roissy Films.
Baza’s accusation adds to reports from more than a dozen women who detailed sexually inappropriate behaviour by Depardieu on film sets between 2004 and 2022 in an April exposé in Mediapart; more women have come forward since then.
Baza told AFP that she originally went to the police with charges of sexual assault, but said Spanish authorities maintain that her description of the events are characterised as rape. La Vanguardia was first to report Baza’s new claims.
Depardieu has been under investigation for the alleged rape of actress Charlotte Arnould since 2020 and the case is still making its way through French courts. He continues to deny all charges. Actress Helene Darras has also officially pressed charges against Depardieu after claiming he sexually assaulted her on the set of 2008 comedy Disco. The Paris prosecutor’s office says an investigation into the accusations is underway.
Prosecutors in Paris are also investigating the recent apparent suicide of actress Emmanuelle Debever who claimed in 2019 that she had been sexually assaulted by Depardieu during the filming of Andrzej Wajda’s 1982 period film Danton when she was 19.
The 60-year-old died in hospital on December 7 after she was found in the Seine river.
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