The director and actor is the subject of a preliminary investigation covering three separate complaints. Three women gave their testimony to Médiapart after reporting to the courts.
Three new women speak. Nicolas Bedos has been the subject of a preliminary investigation since July 5, after the courts received three separate complaintshas learned franceinfo Tuesday July 18 with the Paris prosecutor’s office, confirming information from Mediapart. The 44-year-old comedian and director is dalready summoned before the Paris Criminal Court in February 2024 for sexual assault while intoxicated.
Three new complaints filed
According to Mediapart, this investigation covers three separate sets of proceedings, one for rape and sexual assault, the other two for sexual assault. Two of the women who reported at the end of June at the Paris prosecutor’s office testified, anonymously, to the investigation site.
One of them, an actress and screenwriter aged 50 today, accuses the fthey of comedian Guy Bedos of having raped her at the family home in Neuilly-sur-Seine (Hauts-de-Seine), one night in 1999. At the time, aged 26, the young waitress had agreed to follow the actor to friends, then with the parents of Nicolas Bedos. She claims she was about to leave when he grabbed her “grabbed by the throat, pinned against the wall” saying to him : “Who do you think you are, you’re not Catherine Deneuve!”. She testifies to a non-consensual and painful sexual intercourse.
A second woman, friend of the first, tells Mediapart of a sexual assault committed by the filmmaker in August 2017 in a vacation home. Nicolas Bedos, whom she describes as “a longtime friend”has according to her “try to [l’]to kiss by force”. She claims to have pushed him away, but he would be “become aggressive”“[l’]preventing you from going out” of the room “in [la] holding firmly by the shoulders and continuing to try to [l’]embrace”.
Finally, we do not know what are the facts denounced in the third complaint filed against the director.
A first complaint as a trigger
It was the revelation of the actor’s police custody and the announcement of his trial that decided the first two women to testify in court, according to Mediapart. Nicolas Bedos was taken into police custody on June 21, after a woman complained of touching his private parts over his pants, in a Parisian club on the night of June 1 to 2.
Before the investigators, the filmmaker declared that he did not want “question the word of the complainant who describes an inappropriate gesture of a few seconds over her jeans”explained his lawyer to franceinfo. “Such a gesture, of which [Nicolas Bedos] does not remember, which would have happened on the dance floor of a nightclub, could only have been accidental under the influence of intoxication”added Julia Minkowski.
This adjective, “accidental”, employed by the defense of the actor, reacted to the four women who testify to Mediapart. In addition to the two women who sent a report to the courts, two others told the investigative media of a behavior “problem” Or “scandalous”. Leslie Masson, a former model, claims that Nicolas Bedos notably tried to touch his crotch in a nightclub before him “spit in the face”. Another woman reports that he “licked the foot” in a nightclub, against his will.
A summons to court in 2024
At the end of his hearing at the end of June, Nicolas Bedos was summoned to be tried at the beginning of the year 2024 for “sexual assault in a state of manifest intoxication”. This offense is punishable by 5 years’ imprisonment and a fine of 75,000 euros.
As for thepreliminary investigation opened on July 5 after the three new complaints, it will have to determine in particular if the facts denounced are not prescribed and if there are no other victims. Contacted by Mediapart, neither Nicolas Bedos nor his lawyer wished to react to these three new complaints.