It’s hard to believe that this kind of attack can still take place in 2022, but unfortunately, Frédéric Deban has had bitter experience of it: the ex-interpreter of Grégory Lacroix in Under the sun was the victim of homophobic attacks by a manager of the Festival d’Avignon, when he was about to perform his play Journal d’un malaudience et ses misunderstandings, based on his own experience.
A very violent attack for which it received support from the theater and the Festival : in a press release published this weekend, the staff did not hesitate to testify in its direction. “Two days ago, a technician in charge of show management took one of the artists scheduled in our theater aside after a violent quarrel, and uttered homophobic insults against him, Mr. Fréderic Deban. that all people, personal and public, of course reproved“they first wrote.
The press release then explains that their “ideal in [leur] action has always been the defense of art, artists and personal and fundamental freedoms. That’s why today we want to make known our total disapproval and our support for the victim of these insults“. Promising to “take the necessary sanctions against the culprit of these despicable and indefensible remarks”they express towards their “artist and friend expression of [leur] unconditional solidarity as well as [leur] sympathy“.
A press release published very shortly after the attack and which should please the actor and his director, who explained in the complaint filed with the Aix-en Provence police station that the man “uttered homophobic slurs in front of witnesses and tried to hit us, writes the 57-year-old actor. Insults: ‘Fuck your guy’s ass’ and ‘you jerk’. The audience waited in front of the theater and heard everything“.
Former actor of Under the sunof which he does not keep only good memories, Frederic Deban is now at the theater to talk about deafness and tinnitus, an illness which handicapped him for years and which he managed to cure thanks to an implant that “saved his life” as he has repeatedly said.