Producer Dominique Besnehard accused of sexual assault, former agent defends himself

In an investigation by “L’Obs”, Thursday, two men accuse the producer of sexual assault. “I may have flirted with them, so what?” reacts the former agent, denying these accusations.

Testimonies have been multiplying since the launch of the #MeTooGarçons movement. In a long investigation, Thursday February 29, the magazine The Obs reveals the testimonies of actors denouncing sexual violence in the cinema industry. The weekly notably publishes the testimonies of two men, Farouk Benalleg and Pierre Bégué, who accuse the producer and former agent Dominique Besnehard of sexual assault.

Farouk Benalleg was a young actor when he says he met the co-producer of the series Ten percent, In 1994. “Dominique immediately invited me to the Olympia to see Julien Clerc, took me to the backstage, where I met all the possible stars, then we had dinner with Catherine Deneuve. YOU imagine for a young actor! I was amazed! he assures The Obs. And then suddenly, in the street, he came up to me and gave me a skate. I went from heaven to hell in a second.”

The aspiring actor claims to have told Dominique Besnehard: “I don’t want this.” “The next day, I returned to the Artmedia agency, but there, Dominique Besnehard then pissed me off, calling me a cockroach, in front of around thirty people. For me, it was over,” he says.

“I might have hit on them, so what?”

In this article, The Obs also reports the testimony of Pierre Bégué. In 2017, this aspiring comedian turned real estate agent emailed the former agent, “after several psychoanalyses and having definitively abandoned my dream of being an actor”. “For ten years I have been ashamed of having allowed myself to be kissed, touched and abused in my weakness or my naivety. Certainly, you did not rape me but, even so many years later, I suffer and will suffer forever from having been considered like a piece of meat.” he wrote to the producer. And the latter added: “The promises you made to me were never kept.”

Contacted by The Obs, Dominique Besnehard strongly refutes these accusations. “I might have hit on them, so what?”reacts the producer. “What do you blame me for? For flirting? Flirting is one thing, abusing your power is another. Never in my life have I promised a role in exchange for a favor!”, he assures. The former agent, a figure in French cinema, adds that the questions surrounding influence in cinema “are recent, they were not in people’s minds at the time.”