French MeToo: Prosecutors Request Rape Charges Against Director Benoît Jacquot
French prosecutors have requested rape charges against director Benoît Jacquot in relation to allegations by actresses Isild Le Besco and Julia Roy, according to French media reports.
Jacquot was taken into police custody on Monday for questioning on Le Besco and Roy’s accusations as well as allegations by actress and director Judith Godrèche.
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For now, the prosecutors have not pressed for charges in relation to Godrèche’s complaint. Jacquot has denied all the accusations.
Godrèche was the first actress to file an official complaint against Jacquot last February, shortly after publicly opening up about her relationship with the director in the late 1980s, which she says began when she was only 14 years old, and he was 40.
The actress now condemns the relationship, saying she was under Jacquot’s control, and filed a complaint of “rape with constraint” against him in February.
Encouraged by Godrèche’s move, Le Besco also decided to file a legal complaint in May, shortly after the publication of an autobiography.
In the work, entitled Dire Vrai, Le Besco accused Jacquot of having a “destructive hold” over her in a relationship that began when she was 16 and he was 52, during the shoot of his 2000 picture Sade.
The actress, who is the estranged sister of actress and director Maïwenn, recounted how she felt Jacquot took over her entire life over the course of the shoot.
“To say that Benoît raped me is obvious. But the word ‘rape’ is reductive. We imagine a physical act, a girl who is taken by force even though she doesn’t want to. Before physically violating me, Benoît raped my mind,” she wrote.
“He got into it from the start of filming Sade, then a little more, day after day, until he completely won me over. I was a teenager and I gave him my complete trust. He replaced my father, my mother, any authority figure. In this way his rape is also incestuous.”
Separately, director Jacques Doillon was also taken into police custody on Monday for questioning on a complaint of “rape with violence” by Godrèche, related to his behavior on and off the set of the 1989 film The 15 Year Old Girl.
Jacquot’s lawyer confirmed to press that he had been allowed to return home on Tuesday. Prosecutors have yet to make a decision on the case.
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