A Spanish journalist has made a fresh rape allegation against French film star Gerard Depardieu – two weeks after another alleged victim jumped to her death into the River Seine.
Ruth Baza, 51, filed the criminal complaint with police in Spain last week for the alleged rape, adding to more than a dozen other women who have accused the 74-year-old Oscar and Bafta-nominated actor of sexually abusing them.
The Spanish writer alleged that she was raped by Depardieu when she was interviewing him in Paris for the Cinemania magazine on October 12 1995.
She claims that Depardieu kissed her on the face and penetrated her with his fingers through her clothes – an allegation formally lodged as rape by police, La Vanguardia reports.
Baza, who at the time was 23 while Depardieu was 46, spoke of ‘an intrusion without any consent, at any time’, adding that she felt ‘paralysed’ during the incident.
A Spanish journalist has made a fresh rape allegation against French film star Gerard Depardieu (pictured at Cannes Film Festival in 2015)
It comes after a criminal inquiry was opened into the ‘mysterious death’ of French actress Emmanuelle Debever (pictured) who had accused Gérard Depardieu of sexual violence
It allegedly took place on the premises of the former production company Roissy Films.
She initially spoke to AFP of ‘sexual assault’ but when asked if she had been raped, she said yes.
‘The police described it as such,’ she said.
Under Spain’s sexual consent law passed last year, the charge of sexual assault takes in a wide array of crimes, from online abuse and groping to rape, each with different possible punishments.
A rape conviction can carry a maximum sentence of 15 years.
Depardieu, an icon of French cinema with more than 200 roles to his name, was charged with rape in France in 2020 and has been accused of sexual harassment and assault by more than a dozen women.
A French television report this month that included footage of the actor making sexist comments has thrown the allegations back in the limelight and reignited a debate about sexism in French cinema.
Baza told AFP that she had ‘completely’ forgotten the alleged assault until she read an investigation published by the news website Mediapart in April, in which 13 women accused the actor of sexual violence.
Baza, who at the time was 23 while Depardieu (pictured in 2013) was 46, spoke of ‘an intrusion without any consent, at any time’, adding that she felt ‘paralysed’ during the incident
The article provoked ‘an inner click’ and ‘flashes’ of memory, which she said she corroborated by personal notes she took at the time.
The criminal complaint has little chance of leading to charges against the actor since the events it refers to have already passed the statute of limitations in France.
Baza said she decided to file her complaint despite this in the hope that it would ‘help other people’ to do the same.
Prosecutors in Paris are also probing the ‘mysterious death’ of actress Emmanuelle Debever, 60, who claimed she was also sexually assaulted by Depardieu.
It is now feared that the last hours of Debever may be linked to multiple abuse accusations levelled by women against the film star.
Ms Debever disappeared from the home she shared with an unidentified partner in Paris late last month, before apparently jumping off a bridge in the French capital eight days later.
She survived the fall, and was plucked out of the water by emergency workers, but died in hospital shortly afterwards.
This was on December 7 – the exact day a new documentary entitled Gérard Depardieu: The Fall of the Ogre was broadcast across France.
It contained disturbing details of an alleged attack by Depardieu on Ms Debever, when she was still a teenager.
It was originally thought that Ms Debever committed suicide, but when detectives became aware of numerous accusations being made against Depardieu in the France 2 programme, the direction of the inquiry changed.
A spokesman for Paris prosecutors said: ‘The fact was then mentioned in the media that this actress [Ms Debever] had complained about inappropriate behaviour from Gérard Depardieu, in particular through a post on Facebook in 2019.
‘In view of this new element, an investigation into the causes of [Ms Debever’s] death was opened.’
It was entrusted to judicial police who must ‘investigate the circumstances which may have led to this mysterious death,’ said the spokesman.
A week before the inquiry was launched, another French actress become the second woman to file a formal sex attack complaint against Depardieu, saying he treated her like ‘a piece of meat’.
Paris prosecutors confirmed that Hélène Darras, 43, reported Depardieu in September. The pair appeared together in the 2007 film Disco, when Darras was 26, and allegedly assaulted.
Waiving her legal right to anonymity, Ms Darras told the same Further Investigation (Complément d’enquete) documentary series: ‘He [Depardieu] is unmanageable.
‘He looks at me as if I were a piece of meat. I have an ultra-tight dress, he pulls me closer to him by the waist, then he runs his hand over my hips, over my bum.’
Ms Darras said Depardieu smelled of ‘spilled alcohol’ as he invited her to his dressing room.
She said she was initially scared of complaining about the ‘king of the show’, so waited 16 years to go the authorities.
French actress Charlotte Arnould (pictured) went public with her accusation that Depardieu, 74, raped her in his Paris mansion. Ms Arnould, 33, renounced her legal right to anonymity at the end of 2021, to protest at how long the investigation is taking
Helene Darras, a French actress who claims Depardieu assaulted her in 2007
It follows at least 14 other women joining alleged rape victim Charlotte Arnould, now 28, in accusing the actor of criminal behaviour.
There is CCTV footage of Depardieu performing a sex act on Arnould at his Paris mansion in August 2018, but he insists it was consensual.
Ms Arnould renounced her legal right to anonymity at the end of 2021, following Depardieu being charged with rape and sexual assault.
Within a few days of his indictment, Depardieu was back working on the Seine River location of the police drama Maigret And The Dead Girl, in which he starred with Jade Labeste.
In October, he broke his silence over claims that he is a serial sex abuser saying: ‘I am neither a rapist nor a predator.’
On Monday, the Grevin Museum in Paris removed the wax figure of Depardieu amid the new claims.
That followed the Belgian municipality’s decision to strip the actor of the honorary citizen title after the Quebec province of Canada also withdrew its top honour to the actor.