Emmanuelle Debever, a French actor who was among the first to accuse Gérard Depardieu of sexual assault, died in Paris earlier this month, French media have reported.
Debever, who in 2019 accused Depardieu of assaulting her on the set of the 1982 film Danton, died on 6 December after a week of hospitalisation, Libération newspaper reported on Thursday, citing the actor’s sister. Previous reports had said Debever died on 7 December, the same day her allegations against her former co-star were re-aired on French television.
Reports indicate the 60-year-old actor had killed herself. The Paris prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation, asking judicial police to “research the circumstances that could have led” to Debever’s death.
A rising star of French cinema in the 1980s, Debever starred in the Polish director Andrzej Wajda’s period drama as Louison, the young wife of Depardieu’s revolutionary leader, Georges Danton. In 1983, she played a disabled daughter with an oppressive father in Jean-Claude Brisseau’s psychological thriller A Brutal Game (Un jeu brutal).
In a Facebook post in 2019, Debever accused Depardieu, one of France’s most famous cinema stars, of trying to grope her as they rode in a carriage on set.
“This monster allowed himself to enjoy plenty during filming, making the most of the intimacy inside a carriage,” she wrote. “Sliding his fat paw under my skirt to, in his words, ‘make me feel better’ … I didn’t allow it to happen.”
Her allegation was included among several others in a documentary entitled Gérard Depardieu: The Fall of the Ogre, broadcast on the television channel France 2 on 7 December.
The show, from the investigative news programme Complément d’Enquête, also included an interview with the actor Hélène Darras, who has filed an official complaint against Depardieu, 74, alleging he sexually assaulted her on the set of the 2007 film Disco.
More than a dozen women previously made allegations of sexually inappropriate behaviour against Depardieu in an investigation by the French online outlet Mediapart last year.
In 2021, Depardieu was charged with rape and sexual assault in a case brought by the actor Charlotte Arnould, who alleges he raped her in his Left Bank apartment in 2018 when she was 22. Depardieu, who said the allegations were “baseless”, attempted to have the charges thrown out but a Paris court last year upheld them, saying there was “serious and confirmed evidence that justifies Gérard Depardieu to remain charged”.
Depardieu denied allegations of rape and sexual assault in an open letter published in Le Figaro in October. “Never, ever have I abused a woman,” the actor wrote. “To the media court, to the lynching that has been reserved for me, I have only my word to defend myself.”
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
