Polanski is cleared of defaming actress who accused him of rape
A BRITISH actress who said being portrayed by Roman Polanski as a child prostitute was worse than being allegedly raped by him has lost her libel case.
Charlotte Lewis, 56, had appeared in a criminal court in Paris to accuse the director, 90, of defamation.
It was the first time that Polanski, a married father of two, had faced court justice since he fled from America in 1977 after pleading guilty to having unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl.
But yesterday judges at the 17th Chamber of the Paris Criminal Court acquitted Polanski of any libel.
During a trial held in March, the state prosecutor did not request a conviction following her submissions. ‘Mr Polanski has now been cleared, and the case is closed’ said a source.
In 2010, Ms Lewis first accused Polanki of attacking her ‘in the worst possible way’ when she was a 16-year-old auditioning for his 1986 film Pirates in the French capital.
Polanski – whose films include Rosemary’s Baby and Chinatown – described the claim as a ‘heinous lie’ in an interview with Paris Match magazine in 2019.
He also produced a copy of the now- defunct News of the World, which quoted Ms Lewis as saying: ‘I
‘Suffered every day for 14 years’
was fascinated by him, and I wanted to be his lover.’
Polanski spoke out against Ms Lewis soon after Frenchwoman Valentine Monnier became the sixth woman to directly accuse the director of rape.
Ms Lewis, who was portrayed in the article as someone who became a prostitute at the age of 14, denied the quotes published in the British newspaper, and filed the libel complaint. Polanski, who did not attend the court case, vehemently denied any wrongdoing.
Ms Lewis said that the attack on her reputation was far more damaging than the alleged rape. ‘It was much worse because the defamation has made me suffer every day for 14 years,’ she said previously.