Film director drugged and raped me, says French actress
POLICE are investigating accusations that Luc Besson, the French film director, drugged and raped an actress in a Paris hotel, in the latest in a string of sexual assault claims to shake the cinema industry in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal.
News of the allegations broke during the closing ceremony of the Cannes Film Festival, where an Italian actress who says she was raped by Mr Weinstein made an emotional speech and warned that more male cinema figures would be held to account.
Mr Besson, the 59-year-old director of The Big Blue, Lucy and The Fifth Element, has categorically denied the rape claims.
His accuser, a 27-year-old French actress whose name has not been made public, filed the complaint with police in Paris on Friday after the alleged assault the previous night at the exclusive Hôtel Le Bristol in the French capital, according to judicial sources.
She told them she had been in a relationship with Mr Besson, who is abroad at the moment and has not been questioned by police, for around two years, but said she felt pressured into sexual relations for professional reasons.
Europe 1 radio, which broke the story, said the alleged victim told police how she “drank tea, then felt unwell and lost consciousness”, and when she came round she remembered being sexually assaulted.
Thierry Marembert, a lawyer acting for Mr Besson, said the claims were “fantasist accusations” and that the actress was someone the director knew, but “towards whom he has never behaved inappropriately”.
News of the accusations emerged on Saturday evening shortly before Asia Argento, an Italian actress, took to the stage at the closing ceremony of the festival in Cannes, where she says she was raped by Mr Weinstein in 1997.
“I was 21. This festival was his hunting ground,” Ms Argento, now 42, told the star-studded audience. “Even tonight, sitting among you, there are those who still have to be held accountable for their conduct against women, for behaviour that does not belong in this industry,” she said.
Mr Weinstein denies all allegations of non-consensual sex.