Gerard Depardieu found guilty of sexual assault
Gerard Depardieu has been found guilty of sexual assault on a 2021 film set.
The 76-year-old French actor was convicted by the Paris Judicial Court of having groped a 54-year-old set dresser during the filming of 'Les Volets Verts'.
The panel of judges will deliver a verdict regarding another complaint against Depardieu, and pronounce a sentence later on Tuesday.
His two accusers testified in court, with the set dresser describing how the actor pincered her between his legs as she squeezed past him in a narrow corridor.
She said he grabbed her hips then started 'palpating' her behind and 'in front, around'. She ran her hands near her buttocks, hips and pubic area to show what she experienced. She said he then grabbed her chest.
The woman also testified that Depardieu used an obscene expression to ask her to touch his penis and suggested he wanted to rape her.
She told the court that the actor's calm and cooperative attitude during the trial bore no resemblance to his behaviour at work.
The other plaintiff, an assistant, said that Depardieu groped her buttocks and her breasts during three separate incidents on the film set.
Depardieu, who has denied the accusations, did not attend Tuesday's hearing.
He acknowledged during the trial that he had used vulgar and sexualised language on the film set and that he grabbed the set dresser's hips during an argument, but denied that his behaviour was sexual.
Paris's public prosecutor had requested Depardieu be found guilty and given an 18-month suspended prison sentence and a fine of 20,000 euros. The prosecutor denounced the actor's 'total denial and failure to question himself'.
The case is widely seen as a key post-#MeToo test of how French society and its film industry address allegations of sexual misconduct involving prominent figures.
Some figures in the French cinema world have expressed their support for Depardieu. Actors Vincent Perez and Fanny Ardant were among those who took seats on his side of the courtroom.
In 2018, actor Charlotte Arnould accused him of raping her at his home. That case is still active, and in August 2024 prosecutors requested that it go to trial.
Depardieu's long and storied career turned him into a French movie giant. He was Oscar-nominated in 1991 for his performance as the swordsman and poet Cyrano de Bergerac.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
44 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
See the stunning pics of Matildas star Ellie Carpenter's French wedding as she marries her soccer player girlfriend
Matildas star Ellie Carpenter has tied the knot with her teammate Daniëlle van de Donk in a breathtaking ceremony that came almost 18 months after they got engaged. The 25-year-old met the love of her life as they both played for top French side Lyon and the Aussie revealed their nuptials in a post to Instagram on Wednesday night. Carpenter treated her followers to two photos of the wedding, which was held at a mansion in France, along with the caption 'I choose you. I will always choose you.' The post drew heartfelt messages from her Matildas teammates Emily van Egmond, Emily Gielnik, Kyra Cooney-Cross, Steph Catley and Charli Grant. Another Matildas star, Teagan Micah, was part of the wedding party. Van de donk's gown was made by leading bridal brand Pronovias, while Carpenter's gown - which featured a veil - was created by Collingwood-based custom dress maker Mia Ateliers, with the soccer star describing it as 'the dress of my dreams'. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Ellie Carpenter (@elliecarpenterr) The ceremony - which was the centrepiece of three days of celebrations - was held at the Château Hermitage de Combas in southern France's Servian region. 'The setting is so lush and green, it's beautiful,' Carpenter told Vogue. 'It's got this unique, elegant vibe but still feels grounded in love and who we are as a couple. Intimate, natural, and full of heart.' The couple met while playing internationally and really got to know each other when van de Donk joined Lyon in 2021. They first went public with their romance in 2023 and announced their engagement on New Year's Day last year. The Matildas defender shared the news to Instagram alongside a loved-up photo of the couple taken in front of a stunning ocean vista in the Maldives. In the image, Ellie is seen embracing her fiancée as she flashes her stunning engagement ring. Danielle captioned the touching frame with some tender words. 'My person for life,' she wrote, adding a red love heart and ring emoji. That announcement came after Carpenter spoke out about the cruel abuse she received from online trolls following the Matildas' loss to England in the Women's World Cup semi-final on home soil. She was forced to turn off the comments on her Instagram account after an unfortunate mistake in the 71st minute of the match that proved costly in Australia's eventual 3-1 defeat. Carpenter was given time off by the Matildas for her nuptials and was not in camp when the side's new coach Joe Montemurro addressed the squad for the first time late last month.
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
How a French sex worker got away with murder by blackmailing Edward VIII
Play on Apple Spotify On the first episode of a new ' Queens, Kings and Dastardly Things' podcast series, Royal biographer Robert Hardman and historian Kate Williams examine the 'objectionable' love lives of King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson. This three-part miniseries aims to definitely answer the question of whether the controversial Royal couple are deserving of their notorious reputation. Scandal followed King Edward VIII after his unlikely romance with the twice-divorced American socialite. The King's unprecedented decision in 1936 to abdicate and leave the throne to his younger brother in order to marry Ms Simpson changed the course of British history, leading to the reign of the nation's longest serving monarch Elizabeth II. Even before the pair met and broke with Royal tradition, King Edward was displaying signs he may be unworthy of the crown as early as the First World War. This first episode explores the scandals of Edward's youth, kept under wraps in their day, which expose the soon-to-be King's dubious character. Edward's Liaison with a Murderous Courtesan Young Prince Edward was deemed the British Empire's most eligible bachelor. He was tall, handsome and a would-be King. In 1914, at the onset of the First World War, a 20-year-old Edward joined the Grenadier Guards, leaving Britain for France to help the war effort. On the insistence of Secretary of State Lord Kitchener, Edward never saw any frontline action and was appointed a Staff Captain, an administrative role. Two years into the war, Edward had been gotten drunk by some senior officers and they prompted him to lose his virginity in a French brothel. He eagerly obliged, as Mail columnist Hardman explained: 'Edward got very drunk at a dinner in Amiel and he was then introduced to a popular girl in town named Paulette. 'She was already attached to an officer in the Royal Flying Corps, but I think everyone decided he could spare her for this important duty. 'She took him to bed and this night of passion was by all accounts a great success. It made a lifelong impression on Edward himself. 'Afterwards he writes, all I think of is women now.' After sleeping with a prostitute, the Prince of Wales then turned his wandering eyes to a more serious paramour, a Parisian courtesan by the name of Marguerite Alibert. Unlike the Prince, 17-year-old Marguerite had a difficult upbringing, as Kate Williams told the podcast. 'Marguerite is the daughter of a coachman. Her little brother was killed by a lorry and her parents blame her for it. 'They send her to a Catholic school in Paris where Marguerite gets pregnant and then expelled. 'She's quickly snapped up by one of these high-end brothels. She's only 16 at the time and this is the only way she can earn money. 'Marguerite works her way up to becoming a courtesan to much older men, which she is very good at – marrying clients and receiving generous divorce settlements.' In 1917, Marguerite is introduced to Edward, and they begin a very intense love affair. Edward sends 20 letters to the courtesan, featuring explicit sexual details. 'They're very explicit – they'd ruin his reputation if they ever got out', Williams said. Knowing that the prince would soon be forced to leave her, Marguerite cleverly kept hold of the letters as an 'insurance policy' if she ever found herself in trouble with the law. She would need the letters six years later, as Robert Hardman explained: 'Marguerite ended up in a particularly miserable marriage with an Egyptian aristocrat. 'She ends up murdering him at the Savoy Hotel. It all goes to court – with the courtesan tried in London.' The former Courtesan shot her husband three times - in the neck, back and head - in what is seen as an 'open and shut case'. However, as Hardman told the podcast: 'Marguerite presents the letters to the prosecution and threatened to make them public. Some kind of deal is done. 'Afterwards the case was not pursued with any great alacrity, almost certainly thanks to her earlier liaison with the Prince of Wales.' Marguerite was acquitted of all charges. The letters were so decisive in the case not only because of they revealed the affair, but also due to the Edward's moaning about the war effort. 'These letters aren't just love letters', Williams said. 'Within them, he's also critical of his father George V and there were also criticisms of how World War One was organised and fought. 'There were whispers at the time Marguerite had a relationship with Edward, but no one could prove it because they were buried in her chest at home.' To hear more Royal scandals like this one, search for 'Queens, Kings & Dastardly Things' now, wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes are released every Thursday.
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
Sky Sports News' golden age at an end as rival platforms turn up the volume
A constant in pubs, gyms and hotel breakfast rooms, almost always with the sound down. Perhaps not since cinema's silent age have faces been so familiar without the general public knowing their voices. The vibe is more casual than in previous times, shirt sleeves rather than business suits, but the formula remains the same: a carousel of news, clips, quotes, quips, centred around highlights, all framed within a constant flow of results, fixtures and league tables. Sky Sports News hits 27 years of broadcasting in August, having been launched for the 1998-99 football season by BSkyB. As the domestic football season concluded, news came of changes within the Osterley-based newsroom. Seven members of the broadcast talent team would be leaving, including the long-serving Rob Wotton and the senior football reporter Melissa Reddy, within a process of voluntary redundancies. Sky sources – not those Sky sources – are keen to state the changes are not a cost-cutting exercise, instead a redress of SSN's place within a changing media environment. Ronan Kemp, the One Show presenter and Celebrity Goggleboxer, is understood to be in discussions to join Sky and despite Wotton's departure, Ref Watch will still be serving those who get their kicks from re-refereeing matches and VAR calls. Rolling news, which became common currency around the time of the initial Gulf war with Iraq is no longer the go-to information environment. Sky News, SSN's sister organisation, is going through similar changes, including the loss of the veteran anchor Kay Burley. The smartphone, where news alerts supplant even social media, takes the strain of keeping the world informed of Micky van de Ven's latest hamstring injury. Desperate to hear even more from Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville? There are podcasts and YouTube channels available at a swipe. In the US, ESPN's SportsCenter and its accompanying ESPNews channel were the progenitors of a medium copied globally and by Sky in launching SSN. SportsCenter is a flagship in marked decline from a golden 1990s era that made American household names of presenters such as Stuart Scott, Keith Olbermann and Dan Patrick. ESPN, an organisation in the process of taking itself to digital platforms as cable TV gets mothballed, closed SportsCenter's Los Angeles studio in March. Linear TV's death will be slow, but it is dying nonetheless as streaming, all bundles and consumer choice, takes hold. Meanwhile, YouTube channels, with production values way below industry standard, amass huge audiences for fan-owned, independent media. The time of viewers tuning in for 10pm highlights voiced over by presenters' catchphrases – Scott's 'boo yah!' being the prime example – has long passed. Social media and YouTube have killed the demand. Though live sports remain the foundation of broadcasting contracts, highlights and analysis can be watched at the time of the viewers' choice. Digital is where the eyeballs go, and what the advertising dollar is attracted to, despite the ubiquity of Go Compare et al. Viewing figures remain healthy but the game is now about far more than ratings. SSN's imperial period was the early millennium days of Dave Clark and Kirsty Gallacher's toothsome double act, to a time when the yellow ticker of breaking news held great sway, though not always delivering on its promise of earthquake journalism (news of Nicky Shorey's Reading contract extension, anyone?). Millie Clode, Di Stewart, Charlotte Jackson, Kelly Cates: a nation turned its lonely eyes to them. Then there was transfer deadline day, more important than the football itself. Long, frantic hours spent hearing Jim White's Glaswegian whine declare anything could happen on this day of days. In the early years it often did, from Peter Odemwingie's mercy dash to Loftus Road to the brandishing of a sex toy in the earhole of reporter Alan Irwin outside Everton's training ground. Another reporter, Andy 'four phones' Burton, labelled the night the 2008 window closed: 'The best day of my life, apart from when my son was born.' Eventually, though, it became too knowing. Not even White's yellow tie, as garish as his hype, accompanied by Natalie Sawyer's yellow dress, could stop the event from becoming desperate hours chasing diminishing returns. Live television is a challenging environment, especially with nothing to feed off. Though many presenters have been lampooned – abused in the more carrion social media age – the difficulty of 'going live' with an earpiece full of instructions and timings should never be underestimated. How does Mike Wedderburn, the channel's first presenter, make it look so easy? When, in a broadcasting-carriage dispute between Virgin and Sky, Setanta Sports News was given brief life in 2007 – 22 months as the Dagmar to Sky's Queen Vic – it was made apparent how hard, and costly, the business can be. Sign up to Football Daily Kick off your evenings with the Guardian's take on the world of football after newsletter promotion Over-exposure to SSN – as happens when someone works in a newspaper sports department, say – can lead to contempt. The joins can be seen, too. Haven't they done that same gag for the past six hours and each time pretended it was an ad lib? Just what is Gary Cotterill up to this time? Why did Bryan Swanson always use such portentous tones? From morning till night, it would be ever-present. On weekend evenings, when you caught the skilled veteran duo of Julian Waters and the late David Bobin running through the day's events, you knew it was time to leave the office, down that late drink, question your life choices, the pair's clipped tones taking on the effect of a lonely late-night cab ride. SSN is forced to move with the times. As is the case across the industry, journalists have often been supplanted by influencers, as the mythical, perhaps unreachable, 'younger audience' is chased. That is not to say the channel is short of decent reporting. In the aftermath of the 2022 Champions League final in Paris, chief reporter Kaveh Solhekol produced a superb account of the ensuing chaos and danger while others floundered for detail. SSN, like SportsCenter across the Atlantic, is now more a production factory for content being sent across the internet, published to multiple platforms, than it is a rolling news channel. Within press statements around the redundancies there was the word 'agile', a term repurposed – and overused – in the business world, but meaning doing more with less. Next season, as heavily trailed on SSN right now, Sky will have 215 Premier League live matches to show, including every game played on Sundays. That requires the company's shift in focus, for Sky Sports News in particular. Though look up wherever you are and it will still be on in the corner, almost certainly with the sound down.
