“Are you hard there? Lol “. In 2013, “fascinated” by the host of NRJ12Romuald *, 15, goes to the set of the show you are live with his parents to attend the recording. A few days later, Jean-Marc Morandini “follows” him on Twitter and starts a conversation with him. For several weeks, the presenter and the teenager will exchange dozens of messages. But quickly, the man, 47 years old at the time, made him several explicit sexual proposals.
Messages for which Jean-Marc Morandini will appear, this Monday afternoon, before the Paris Criminal Court. Indicted in 2016 after the complaint of two young men – including Romuald -, the television host must be tried for corruption of minors.
“You said: I love…”
A few days after the start of their exchanges, in February 2013, Jean-Marc Morandini asks, in an “insidious way”, questions to Romuald about his sexual orientation. “After that, it really got out of hand. He mentioned masturbation by asking me if I was masturbating, ”explains the young man to the investigators, according to information obtained at the time by 20 minutes. Fan of the television star, “extremely publicized and popular”, the 15-year-old boy ends up “by getting into his game and answering his questions”, he detailed during his hearing on July 20, 2016, before the police. .
The exchanges continue during the month of March. On the 10th, precisely, at the beginning of the afternoon, the host asks the teenager “are you having a hard-on? Lol [Mort de rire] “, to which Romuald affirms that “yes”. “Hummm”, replies Jean-Marc Morandini. As the discussion progresses, the messages become more and more explicit. The facilitator even sends him a scenario including both of them, on which he fantasizes: “You got down on your knees… You opened my belt. You lowered your pants. You said: I love…”.
If Jean-Marc Morandini does not deny the existence of this exchange, he explains to the investigators that he thought that Romuald “must have been 18 years old”. “On Twitter and on Facebook, I talk to a lot of people, I would say 200 people regularly. The people I received on my set came to tell their sex story. My core audience likes it. Suddenly, it happens in our conversations, it’s not a taboo, ”he justifies then. The facilitator claims that he stopped “talking about sex” with Romuald when the teenager gave him his age. But during his audition, the teenager gives a completely different version. In front of the investigators, he explains that his age was mentioned on his Twitter profile and that he always came with his father. when he attended the taping of the show, which he followed several times. During their exchanges, Romuald also interrupts the conversation so that his mother makes him recite his history lesson on the Cold War.
A double taboo
The defense of Jean-Marc Morandini is a “classic” among “sexual aggressors”, estimates Armelle Le Bigot-Macaux, the president of the association Agir Contre la Prostitution des Enfants (ACPE), which is a civil party to the court case. “But it is not admissible,” she adds. Almost ten years after the events, Romuald, 25 years old today, is “demolished”, according to her. “He is ashamed of having played this game, of having been under the influence of this well-known man who dangled things for him,” she laments.
If Armelle Le Bigot-Macaux is waiting for Jean-Marc Morandini to be convicted and for him to acknowledge the facts, she wishes to emphasize the “emblematic” aspect of the trial: “We are talking about sexual violence against a young homosexual boy, it is even more hidden, it is a double taboo. It is appalling for him to go and appear in front of a court”.
Especially since the president of the association has made it a personal matter. Before the opening of the investigation against Jean-Marc Morandini, the host had invited him to his set to talk about prostitution and sexual violence against children. “I’m getting out there and learning the facts. Clearly, he made fun of me, ”she gets carried away. And ACPE will not be alone. Other associations, such as Innocence in Danger, the Voice of the Child and Stoppons les arnaques aux castings have also joined the trial as civil parties and will be present at the hearing.
A second complaint for sexual harassment
If the second plaintiff has since withdrawn, his story should still be mentioned during the debates. It was in 2009, during the casting for a remake of the American film Ken Park, that Cyprien* meets Jean-Marc Morandini. He asks him to undress, but the teenager refuses. At the insistence of the TV star, the young man, 16 years old at the time, ended up getting naked and agreed to be photographed. “He wanted me to masturbate in front of him. He told me that people who had already cast had done so and that if I didn’t, I wouldn’t get the part. I felt that his gaze had changed. He looked at me as if I were a candy, ”explains the teenager during his audition in September 2016. Cyprien gets scared and ends up leaving the place in tears. In front of the investigators, Jean-Marc Morandini says he does not recognize the young man in the photos and has no memory of this casting.
In 2016, the host challenged his dismissal before the Paris Court of Appeal. Justice had confirmed the trial, but canceled the aggravating circumstances of incitement by a means of telecommunication and incitement to sexual proposal on a minor. The current host of CNews ** then seized the Court of Cassation, which rejected his appeal at the end of February.
And Jean-Marc Morandini is not done with justice. He must be tried by the Paris Criminal Court for “sexual harassment” against an actor during the filming in 2016 of the erotic series The Falcons, which the host directed. According to investigators, he pretended to be a casting director, under the name of Catherine Leclerc, to be able to approach young actors in order to make them shoot videos of a sexual nature. In the same case, his production company “Ne Zappez pas! Production”, meanwhile, will be tried for “concealed work” against five plaintiffs. The trial date has not yet been set.
*Names have been changed
** Jean-Marc Morandini’s lawyer had not responded to requests from ” 20 minutes » at the time of publishing this article