The interview did not fail to react. “Revolted by this release of Emmanuelle Seigner”, “the report of shame”, “the boulevard of impunity”, many twittos (including Cécile Delarue and Hélène Devynck, who accuse the former presenter of TFI Patrick Poivre -d’Arvor of sexual harassment and rape) expressed outrage after the 56-year-old actress, wife of Roman Polanski, testified on the show seven to eight of TF1 on Sunday. Because her support has been unfailing, rejecting all accusations of rape and sexual assault against her husband.
“Me when I met my husband, all the women wanted to sleep with him, all the young girls wanted to sleep with him, it was crazy, it was crazy. He was 52 years old, he looked like he was 30, he was a great director, so he attracted a lot and I think he didn’t need to rape anyone, ”she maintains, denouncing a presumption of “totally flouted” innocence.
“It was a very permissive time”
And when we talk to him about Samantha Gailey, who had accused the filmmaker of having drugged and raped her in 1977 in Los Angeles when she was only 13 years old? “It’s young of course, but it was a very permissive time”, understates Emmanuelle Seigner. “The relationship to age has also changed a lot. At the time, we praised the lolita, we celebrated it. So me, having started my modeling career at 14, it was not a story that shocked me. »
Other women have accused Roman Polanski in recent years: a woman named “Robin”, for a sexual assault in 1973 when she was 16; Renate Langer, former actress who claims to have been raped at the age of 15 in Gstaad in 1972; Marianne Barnard, 10 years old at the material time, for a sexual assault in 1975; Valentine Monnier, who accuses the director of having raped her in 1975 when she was 18; and Charlotte Lewis, “sexually abused” in Paris in the early 1980s at the age of 16.
So many prescribed facts. But to listen to Emmanuelle Seigner, there is only one victim: Roman Polanski. “It’s awful because he can’t edit a film, actors are advised not to act in his films. Myself, I am blacklisted in France, ”she laments. Today, she describes a “bruised” man, a “very good husband and very good father”, who only wants “to be left alone”.