This staging assistant recounts the inappropriate behavior of the star in a testimony collected exclusively by France Inter. Fearing professional reprisals and considering Gérard Depardieu “untouchable”, she does not wish to file a complaint at this stage.
Already accused by 13 women of sexual assault, in April, Gérard Depardieu has been facing since Monday July 10 a new testimony collected exclusively by France Inter, this time from an assistant director, on the set of a TV movie. She was then responsible for managing the actors, and in particular Gérard Depardieu. 27 years old at the time, she has already worked with the actor, and assures that at the time, she had already suffered inappropriate remarks, sexual proposals, and “wandering hands”, but explains that she accepted this new mission because she needed this new contract.
On the set, she claims to have suffered daily remarks and inappropriate gestures from Gérard Depardieu. “At the beginning, it was remarks on the physique in front of the whole technical team“, as ‘I’m going to bust your ass'”, recalls the assistant director. She describes having then received “increasingly supported proposals for sexual intercourse, even paid“. There were wandering hands, on the buttocks and in the crotch“, she adds.
One day, her supervisor asks her to stay alone in a room with the actor so that he does not enter the set during a take.
“He pulled down his pants and showed me his penis. I panicked and left the room as best I could. He caught up with me in the hallway, pinned against the wall, but his belly was blocking everything so he didn’t nothing could do”
An assistant director, on Gérard Depardieuat France Inter
The young woman says, shocked: “As soon as I could get some respite, I ran and locked myself in another room“. She claims to have been subsequently reprimanded for not having succeeded in keeping the actor out of the camera’s field.
The pressure being too heavy, she confides little in other members of the team. She ends the filming by promising herself never to work again with Gérard Depardieu. Contacted by France Inter, one of his former colleagues, who was in the technical team on the TV movie, claims to have noticed that the young woman was uncomfortable. He also affirms that she told him about this aggression at the end of the shooting.
No complaints at this stage
The word of this woman is released eight years later after the revelations of Mediapart, which unveiled in April the testimonies of 13 women who accuse Gérard Depardieu of sexist and sexual violence between 2004 and 2022. “Following the testimonies that I have been able to hear recently, I said to myself that I too had to share mine, especially if it could prevent it from happening again, with him or with others.“, she explains. Fearing professional reprisals and believing Gérard Depardieu “untouchable“, the assistant director does not wish to file a complaint at this stage.
The actor’s lawyers did not respond to requests from France Inter on these particular facts. Gérard Depardieu is already indicted for suspicion of rape and sexual assault on actress Charlotte Arnould. The actor has always denied all charges that may fall under criminal law.