Power, celebrity and being believed: The week that A-listers took the stand and fame was on trial

Independent

17-05-2025

Inside the Palais de Justice, which houses France 's highest court, anticipation had been building for hours by the time Kim Kardashian arrived on Tuesday afternoon. More than 400 journalists from all over the world had gathered to watch the star take the witness stand; by the time the sun began to rise over Paris, dozens of us were already queueing at the doors of the historic building to secure a coveted spot on the press bench.
It was a moment that had been almost 10 years in the making: in 2016, Kardashian was staying just 30 minutes from the court when men claiming to be police officers burst into her room and stole almost $10m (£7.5m) worth of jewellery. Ten men, dubbed the 'grandpa robbers' by French media, stand accused of taking part in the robbery, though all but two deny any involvement. The ordeal, Kardashian told the Cour d'Appel on Tuesday, was terrifying: 'I absolutely thought I was going to die,' she said, tearfully recounting the events of that night. 'I was sure that I was going to be raped.'
At the time of the attack, the public response was chilling. Kardashian – who had been posting regular updates on social media since her arrival in Paris – was cast not as a victim, but as a villain in her own ordeal. Many accused her of lying about what had happened, speculating that she had orchestrated an elaborate stunt to gain cheap hits for her long-running reality TV show Keeping Up with the Kardashians.
Others proclaimed that anyone as willing as Kardashian – the queen of reality TV – to put their life up for public consumption should expect as much as they got; the way she presented herself was considered too obvious, too shallow, for sympathy. The overarching narrative was that if she hadn't flaunted her wealth so garishly, she wouldn't have been gagged, bound, and threatened at gunpoint; she wouldn't have been forced to 'say a prayer' to prepare herself to be raped as a man grabbed her legs and pulled her naked body, covered only by a thin robe, towards him on a bed.
'Just because a woman wears jewellery, it doesn't make her a target. That's like saying just because a woman wears a short skirt that she deserves to be raped,' her friend and stylist Simone Harouche, who was with her on the night in question, indignantly told the court a few hours before Kardashian's appearance. It seems that even being at the apex of fame can't protect a woman from the notion that she might be 'asking for it'.
On the same day that Kardashian gave evidence, in another Paris courtroom, Gerard Depardieu did not even bother to appear as the verdict was read at the end of his two-week trial – instead, as his victims anxiously waited to see if they would be granted justice for his assaults on them, Depardieu was filming in the Azores. In absentia, the actor was found guilty of sexually assaulting two women on a film set, and was handed an 18-month suspended sentence. He was also fined a total of €29,040 (£24,400), while the judge ordered that he be added to the national sex offender database in France.
The court heard that in one of the attacks, carried out on a set dresser during filming, the actor grabbed the woman's hips and began 'palpating' her behind, and 'in front, around', before grabbing her chest. The woman testified that Depardieu also 'used an obscene expression' to suggest that he wanted to rape her and wanted her to touch his penis. And yet. Depardieu has confidently, casually dismissed what the judge in his case deemed 'consistent, credible accounts of being groped by the actor' backed up by solid witness testimony supporting the women's claims.
In court, Depardieu's lawyer accused the women of lying, while the actor has previously repeatedly rejected formal complaints of misconduct from more than 20 women. In turn, the headlines lauded him as a legend, and he was described by French film icon Fanny Ardant as the 'monster and the saint'; as no more than a victim of his own genius. 'Genius, in whatever form it takes, carries with it an element of the extravagant, the untamed, the dangerous,' Ardant said, defending him. Brigitte Bardot, meanwhile, expressed contempt for the way in which 'talented people who touch the buttocks of a girl are consigned to the deepest dungeon'. 'Feminism isn't my thing,' the 90-year-old added. 'Personally, I like men.'
And there was more, only this time, more than 3,000 miles across the Atlantic in New York, where in the same 24 hours Cassandra 'Cassie' Ventura took the stand for the first full day of testimony in the trial of Sean Combs, also known as Diddy, P Diddy or Puff Daddy. Combs has pleaded not guilty to five counts of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution.
Ventura, an ex-girlfriend of Combs who is currently eight months pregnant, told the jury this week that the rapper had physically and emotionally abused her for years, exerting control over virtually every aspect of her life. Combs, she claims, constantly subjected her to so-called 'freak-offs' or 'FOs' – drug-fuelled marathons of sex with sex workers, orchestrated and directed by him, that lasted for days.
In their cross-examination, Combs's lawyers challenged Ventura on her account, putting to her that the sexual encounters were consensual, and questioning her on the 'loving' side of the couple's relationship. The prosecution played video evidence of Combs running down a hotel hallway in 2016 and then appearing to beat Ventura outside a lift. But fans gathering outside the court, according to BBC reports, 'hope he is not convicted'.
'I am not saying he is totally innocent, but I feel the charges against him are exaggerated,' 42-year-old Rhaze Lanore told reporter Pratiksha Ghildial. On social media, others have suggested that Ventura's husband will leave her when the trial ends, and that she 'enjoyed' the abuse. Heartbreaking, but unsurprising, are the comments from both men and women that hold Ventura responsible for what she claims to have been through, simply because she didn't leave the relationship.
In just 24 hours this week, dispatches from court painted a uniquely grim picture. The three trials – disparate in context, yet deeply connected by theme – have laid bare the uncomfortable scaffolding of modern celebrity culture, and the underlying narrative concerning the intersection of male power, wealth and fame.
Kardashian's testimony might once have been dismissed as celebrity theatre – and watching the paparazzi gather for her appearance on Tuesday, it was apparent beyond doubt that the horrific nature of her ordeal wasn't dampening the show-trial spirit. However, her decision to take the stand in person, face her attackers in the flesh – even forgive one of them – was a powerful move and showed that she shouldn't be underestimated.
This time, Kardashian – cannily wearing a $1.5m diamond necklace to do so – took back control by juxtaposing her public persona with the vulnerability of her private experience. Wealth and glamour don't invalidate fear, she said, laying bare a truth that so many women understand. Danger doesn't discriminate, and, if you are a woman, no amount of power can protect you from other people's contempt.
Depardieu's attitude shows that, for men, the opposite is true. While his conviction was rightly celebrated as a dismantling of the belief that power must be preserved even at the expense of justice – and that genius somehow excuses harm – attitudes around the case show all too well that, despite the tidal changes of #MeToo and the cultural shift that Giselle Pelicot forced singlehandedly with her powerful testimony late last year, there's still a long way to go.
And as Combs's trial continues – concerning not only alleged sexual abuse, but coercion and the silencing of women behind industry walls built on misogyny and money – another reckoning hangs in the hands of the jury. Whatever verdicts are delivered in the coming weeks, what's certain is that there are no tidy endings to stories like these: there are only battles – for women, A-listers or otherwise, fighting to be heard – that will go on long after court has been dismissed.
In the meantime, years on from Weinstein and #MeToo, we're still far from achieving a justice system that truly works for women. Survivors still face the exhausting burden of proving that their pain is real enough to matter – the difference is that women are no longer waiting to be granted the credibility to speak out. Some of them do it dripping in diamonds.