On August 30, Edgar Fruitier was sentenced to six months in prison for having sexually assaulted a teenager on three occasions a few decades ago.
Jean-René Tétreault had the courage to denounce his attacker and I thank him for it. We should all thank him for it.
However, quickly, on social networks, the comments were quick to emerge. Comments from people in the arts community have come forward to defend, to pity Mr. Fruitier, to feel sorry for him. Brothers and sisters, actors, actresses, authors, writers, deplored this judgment on Facebook:
“Poor Edgar”
“Inhuman”
” Oh my God ! ”
” Any sense ”
“Homophobia of the judge”
“This sentence is disproportionate. ”
Inordinate? Truly ?
This man abused a young person on several occasions. This man protected by the environment (my environment), and this, for a long time. Always. We knew. We all knew.
Edgar Fruitier regularly saw young men, often actors. Boys who had to endure his touching and his insistence. With all of us, his colleagues, who pretended nothing.
I speak of it because I myself have been subjected to the touching of M. Fruitier.
In 1984, I was a young actor and shared a dressing room with Edgar. The production had thought that it would be funny to have us live in a tiny room with a closed door. In a lodge where I dressed and undressed every day, sometimes twice a day, for six weeks. Quickly, I suffered the touching, the harassment, the insistent and fiery tampering with Mr. Fruitier. In my dressing room. Alone with him.
I was 22 at the time and already had a strong character. I did not keep any sequel of this episode. I have no trauma. However, for a young actor who wants to make a career, pushing back and denouncing Edgar Fruitier was perilous. He was a nice man, in his early forties. Loved by all. Sometimes mocked. No one saw anything very serious in his behavioral deviations. That was the time. It was like that. Edgar was not the only one. Others also took advantage and we were all accomplices.
Although worried about the consequences of my gesture, I took my courage in both hands and I decided to speak to the theater management. The answer: “Dear Edgar! ”
Spoken with a knowing smile towards me. I was now in the secret.
Distraught, I talked about it with my colleagues, senior and talented actors and actresses. Their reactions: “Poor Edgar …”
Why “poor Edgar”? It was me, the victim. Not him.
“But he’s always been like that. He loves young men. He always loved them. But it never works. You just have to push it away gently but firmly. Poor Edgar. ”
I repeat. I have never had any serious after-effects or insurmountable trauma caused by these misconduct. Uneasiness in the dressing room, of course. Discomfort at his touch, obviously. The fear of having sabotaged my young career, yes. It is more or less that.
But when I think of Jean-René Tétreault and all those who were touched and sexually abused by Edgar Fruitier and who remained silent, who did not want to denounce because they were afraid of reprisals or the consequences harmful to their careers, which have kept a painful memory, I am disturbed.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, PRESS ARCHIVES
Edgar Fruitier
When I think of those, and there are dozens, who have chosen not to “harm” Mr. Fruitier, I tell myself that six months of imprisonment seem fair and deserved to me. That people in the arts community, who claim social justice, have “wokism” with a rather variable geometry.
I also think that those who find it unfair that he is convicted, when more dangerous predators are free, mix everything up and that just because a few big bastards have been found not guilty that we should leave the ” little bastards ”in freedom.
I think that all those who pity Mr. Fruitier because “he is old and does not deserve this” are mistaken. Whether he’s 30 or 92 doesn’t change that. He is guilty and must serve his sentence.
Finally, those who accuse the judge of homophobia are really saying anything. It is not sex between people of the same sex that he punishes. It is an assault. Regardless of the gender of the responders, assault is a crime. If some do and some don’t, I refuse to believe that it has to do with their sexual orientation.
Edgar Fruitier rocked the childhood of many of us. Later, he made us laugh with crazy reviews about the music. Touched us in several soap operas. We loved him. It was part of our television reality. He was there, sympathetic, harmless, reassuring. So of course it upsets us to learn that he was a sexual predator. That we would have preferred never to learn that he was not who we wanted him to be.
However, I feel uneasy when I hear that he is defended. I dare not imagine Jean-René Tétreault reading the comments that are sorry for Mr. Fruitier’s fate. I rejoice in thinking of the many victims who may have received this judgment as a balm on their suffering. And I hope, with as much humanity as possible, that in the name of the decency and the dignity of the victims, we will never read again: “Poor Edgar”.