The day after journalists Isabelle Hachey and Marie-Ève Tremblay visited Everybody talks about itcomedian Audrey-Anne Dugas denounces the manipulation and defamation of which she is the victim. The newspaper spoke with her.
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On November 16, The Press + published a file entitled The Julien Lacroix affair, two years later Scars and regrets returning to the fall of comedian Julien Lacroix targeted in July 2020 by allegations of misconduct and sexual assault. This file reported “regrets” for the public denunciations of some of the 9 women. It also presented portraits of other women who are not alleged victims of Julien Lacroix, including comedians Rosalie Vaillancourt and Audrey-Anne Dugas.
It is with the latter that Le Journal spoke at length on Monday. Described by many as “the woman who recruited the alleged victims of Julien Lacroix” following the report by La Presse +, Audrey-Anne Dugas is a comedian who was part of the same improvisation league as Julien Lacroix. She wanted to establish the facts about her real involvement in the Julien Lacroix affair. For the sake of veracity and justice towards itself.
“It was said that I had contacted The duty two years ago, which is false, explains the one who wrote on social networks: “this story has become defamation of me. Point.” Victims contacted me saying they wanted to be heard and I invited them to tell their story to journalists.
“It’s no secret that I resent the two journalists involved, I feel manipulated, continues Audrey-Anne Dugas. I resented them, but it took on another dimension, because they completely made up facts like the story of the gossipy brunch with Alice Payer. I never went to brunch with Alice. The journalist invented this story, and Alice never told me that she would have left with Julien if she had been single.
Alice Payer is one of nine women who have denounced sexual misconduct by Julien Lacroix in 2020. In the recent article by The Press +she claimed to “feel hypocritical” and not to have been branded by this story of an unsolicited kiss on the lips from the comedian met at the end of the evening in April 2019.
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“TO Everybody talks about itMarie-Ève Tremblay claimed that I had forced Alice Payer to testify against Julien Lacroix”, wrote Audrey-Anne Dugas on her social networks Sunday evening.
She points out today the lack of transparency and nuances in this new investigation on Julien Lacroix as well as the instrumentalization of which she was the victim, on paper and Sunday evening on the show. She also claims to have spoken to several victims of Julien Lacroix.
“None of those I spoke to regret having spoken,” she says. Like me, they were shocked by the article. I find it insidious that the two journalists imply that many regret.
No lawsuits yet
Audrey-Anne Dugas shared on social networks the screenshot of a conversation she had with Marie-Ève Tremblay and Isabelle Hachey “to ensure that the true facts are found in the article before its release”. However, she does not wish to comment, for the moment, on the defamation lawsuit she mentioned in one of the messages in the event of a slippage.
In another exchange, Alice Payer wrote to him: “In my interview, I never said DUGAS MADE ME DO IT, because that is not the case. It was a series of events and circumstances that led me to believe that I had to do it…”
Audrey-Anne Dugas insists: she did not act out of revenge against Julien Lacroix, even if she had already had a conflict with him. The cause of this conflict: it was she who had informed Geneviève Morin, the ex-spouse of Julien Lacroix, aware of the many infidelities of the comedian.
“When I asked the question: Did I act out of revenge, it was a rhetorical question, because immediately after I said: the answer is no, she explains. In the intro of the podcast of my episode (offered on the 98.5 website), we just take the excerpt from this question, without my answer. This is completely false, I have never recruited women out of a desire “to bring down Julien Lacroix”.
She adds that she heard, long before #metoo, “a lot more than 9 times when Julien would have committed sexual assaults”.
Threats and lies
Andrey-Anne Dugas must manage, at this time and since the beginning of this whole affair, numerous and violent threats received on social networks. She also said she was very surprised by the involvement of the comedian and his current lover, Maude Sabbagh, in the recent article by The Press +.
She also finds the statements of journalists claiming that Julien Lacroix is out of work to be false. “It is known in the community that Julien works for his parents’ costume designer, he has a good job,” she said. So it’s another lie to victimize him by saying he doesn’t work.”
“At the beginning, I had even refused to participate in the interview with the Press,” she confides. They (the journalists) strongly insisted by telling me that they had information on me. I felt up against the wall. Then, the angle I was told about was no longer the same in the published article.
She wrote to Marie-Ève Tremblay to explain to her that she felt cheated and instrumentalized, with no response.
“I expect to receive more hate,” she said. I find it deeply hypocritical and incoherent that Isabelle Hachey and Marie-Ève Tremblay said yesterday that they wanted the hatred to stop, but that they describe me as an avenger who invents sexual assaults on friends. It’s a huge lack of empathy.”