an actress files a complaint against Gérard Depardieu for sexual assault on the set of the film “Disco” in 2007

Hélène Darras filed a complaint against the actor in September after testifying for “Complément d’investigation”. Gérard Depardieu is already indicted for rape and sexual assault, after Charlotte Arnould’s complaint.

Hélène Darras only kept one photo from the filming of the comedy Discoin 2007. In the center, Gérard Depardieu smiles broadly. The actress, then aged 26, is a little to the side, on the far right. And if his smile is “edgy” on the photo, it is that she has just been attacked, according to her story. After having testified for the issue of “Complément d’investigation” devoted to the actor*, broadcast Thursday December 7 on France 2, the actress filed a complaint for sexual assault against Gérard Depardieu. Contacted on Wednesday, the Paris prosecutor’s office, which confirmed to franceinfo having received this complaint on September 10, 2023, “study what direction to give it”.

In “Complement of investigation”, Hélène Darras describes a cinema experience which had nevertheless started well. An extra on the set of Disco, directed by Fabien Onteniente with Franck Dubosc in the main role, she inherits at the last moment a small role as a candidate in a dance competition. A great career opportunity for the young woman.

An “unmanageable” actor

But while she is delighted to rub shoulders with the stars of the film, the behavior of Gérard Depardieu shocks her. “He already smells of alcohol and then, his behavior… It is unmanageableshe says. He looks at me like I’m a piece of meat. I have an ultra-tight dress, he pulls me closer to him by the waist, then he runs his hand over my hips, over my butt…”

He said to me bluntly: ‘Do you want to come up to my dressing room?’ I tell him no, but that doesn’t change the fact that between takes, he will continue to grope me. I’m petrified.”

Hélène Darras, actress

to “Further investigation”

Gérard Depardieu “est the king on the plateau” and to At the time, she preferred not to say anything to the production. “I’m an extra, I haven’t even finished my theater school yet, and I want to be an actress. I don’t want to be blacklisted at 26”, explains the actress. She therefore entrusts her impressions to her diary, of which she reads a few lines: “The abysmal void. I no longer exist. Nothingness. The invisible. My heart hurts so much. The worst wound is psychological. No one can give me back my trust, no one can give me back my life, except me. “

An indictment for rape and sexual assault

Contacted by “Complément d’investigation”, director Fabien Onteniente assures that he does not remember any problems on this shoot. But he says he had to reframe Gérard Depardieu, a few years later, during the production of the film Turffor inappropriate gestures towards extras.

Neither Gérard Depardieu nor his lawyer wished to respond to “Further investigation”. In an open letter published in October in Le Figarothe actor denied having committed the slightest assault during his career. “I am neither a rapist nor a predator”, he wrote then. But hasAt least sixteen women accuse him of sexist and sexual violence, notably in a Mediapart investigation published in April. Gérard Depardieu has also been indicted since 2020 for rape and sexual assault, after the accusations of the actress Charlotte Arnould, who also testifies in “Additional investigation”.

Until now, Hélène Darras had not filed a complaint, but had provided her testimony to the police “to support that of Charlotte Arnould”, explained Mediapart. In this written testimony, delivered in March 2022 and which Franceinfo was able to consult, the actress already described a Gérard Depardieu showing himself “pressing (…) between each take”. “He grabs me tightly by the waist and has a wandering hand”she wrote, also reporting “a hand firmly supported on the buttocks”. “Gérard Depardieu seems untouchable to me, that’s why I said nothing at the time, but today, it seems important to me to provide my testimony”she explains again. His complaint, denouncing facts which allegedly occurred in 2007, could be time-barred. The time limit for sexual assault is in fact six years.

* The investigative magazine offers a long investigation, Thursday December 7, into the behavior of Gérard Depardieu, targeted by multiple accusations and now by two complaints for rape and sexual assault.

The investigation also focuses on comments made by the actor in press interviews in the 1970s and 1990s, when he was at the height of his fame. He then recounted having participated in rapes in his youth, remarks which he then disputed.

“Additional investigation” obtained previously unpublished images, met actresses and technicians who implicate Gérard Depardieu, other cinema professionals who worked with him, but also relatives who defend him. To see, from 11 p.m., on France 2, on franceinfo.fr And on france.tv.