WHEN Emmanuelle Debever plunged into the River Seine in Paris last week, it was assumed the actress wanted to end her life.
A day later, a TV documentary aired allegations that Oscar-nominated actor Gerard Depardieu had groped her when she was 19.
But last night it was revealed that her fatal fall was being investigated.
There is no suggestion that any crime has been committed.
It is the latest twist in the #MeToo saga around the Green Card star that is gripping France.
The world’s most famous French film star has faced several sexual assault claims over a five-year period and been investigated for the alleged rape of actress Charlotte Arnould.
READ MORE CELEB NEWS
The case is currently working its way through the French courts.
Depardieu’s career appears to be unaffected — last year he played the famous fictional detective Jules Maigret in a movie and starred in two French TV shows.
But footage in the new documentary of him harassing an interpreter and seemingly making sexual comments about a ten-year-old girl could be the end for the controversial star.
Quebec, the French-speaking province of Canada, last night stripped Depardieu, 74, of its National Order honour.
Most read in The Sun
That could be the least of his worries, with French cops treating Emmanuelle’s death as “mysterious.”
‘He looks at me as if I were a piece of meat’
A spokesman for Paris prosecutors said: “This actress had complained about inappropriate behaviour from Gerard 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.”
Even before the first allegations emerged in 2018, Depardieu was a polarising figure.
This self-confessed brawler relieved himself in a bottle on a plane, fondled a female reporter at an awards ceremony, appeared drunk during an interview with Jonathan Ross on BBC One in 2005 and became a Russian citizen to avoid paying taxes in his homeland.
He admitted to ripping off clients when he was a rent boy and digging up graves to snatch jewels — but he has repeatedly denied being a sexual predator.
In an open letter to Le Figaro newspaper in October, he wrote: “Never have I abused a woman.”
That assertion is challenged in the documentary Gérard Depardieu: The Fall Of The Ogre, which was shown in France on Thursday last week.
It includes previously unseen footage of him touring North Korea in 2018 to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the communist state.
At a visit to an equestrian centre, Depardieu talks about women getting turned on by riding horses and calls them “sluts” while a ten-year-old girl is on horseback.
In another clip, he says to a female interpreter “you’re going to take a nice shower and think of me” and “I’ve got a beam in my pants.”
He tells another woman to “take a picture while I touch her bottom” as he draws the interpreter closer towards him.
The documentary also features Helene Darras, who claims she was assaulted by Depardieu when she worked as an extra on the 2007 movie Disco.
She alleges: “He 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.”
Paris prosecutors have confirmed that Darras, 43, reported Depardieu in September.
The TV show also recounted allegations made by drowned actress Emmanuelle, 60, in a social media post in 2019.
She wrote on Facebook that Depardieu pounced while sat next to her in a horse-drawn carriage on the set of the period drama Danton in 1982.
Emmanuelle claimed: “This monster allowed himself to enjoy plenty during filming. Sliding his fat paw under my skirt to, in his words, make me feel better. I didn’t want to let it happen.”
A source claimed last night that Emmanuelle had filed a complaint of rape against Depardieu but it had been dropped due to lack of evidence.
She disappeared from her Paris home late last month, and her unnamed partner reported her missing on November 29.
An investigating source said: “He said she had left their home leaving a worrying note.”
Just over a week later, cops revealed “a woman had jumped from a bridge into the Seine.”
She was revived by emergency workers and rushed for treatment but died in hospital.
Whatever happens with Emmanuelle’s case, the flow of highly damaging stories are a threat to Depardieu’s reputation.
Last year his lawyers failed to have the rape and sexual assault charges relating to Charlotte Arnould thrown out of court.
She filed her complaint in 2018 just a few days after he is said to have attacked her at his Paris mansion.
Depardieu denies the allegations.
In April this year, 13 women made allegations of inappropriate behaviour against Depardieu in an investigation by French online newspaper Médiapart.
They included US actress Sarah Brooks, who was aged 20 when she worked with him on the Netflix series Marseille in 2015.
She claimed that Depardieu made a “groaning noise” as he put his hand down her shorts.
Sarah told journalists: “Everyone laughed, and so he then carried on. I felt awful.”
A public outcry led him to cancel some public appearances and feminists protested during one of his stage shows.
Depardieu responded with his open letter, claiming he was the victim of a “lynching.”
He denied raping Charlotte, who he’d known since she was a child.
That led to Anouk Grinberg — who made two films with him and lived with his pal Bertrand Blier — alleging she had witnessed the star’s behaviour.
The 60-year-old actress told Elle magazine in October:
“When he says in that letter that he’s never assaulted a woman, I’ve seen him do it all this time.
“Verbally, physically. I’ve seen him put his hands on women’s buttocks, touch their breasts and sex, all the while joking. Nobody ever said a word.”
Depardieu, whose previous girlfriends include Bond girl Carole Bouquet, has four children with three women.
His eldest son Guillaume, who was jailed for heroin dealing, died at the age of 37 in 2008.
Depardieu’s daughters Julie, 50, and Roxane, 31, are actresses. He also has another son, Jean, 17.
The actor is not helped by his own wild statements.
In 1978 he told a mag called Film Comment that in his youth “I had plenty of rapes, too many to count.”
When Time magazine asked Depardieu in 1991 whether had taken part in the assaults he said that he had — but later denied the story and claimed his quotes had been mistranslated.
Depardieu also said he used to drink 14 bottles of wine a day.
His defenders claim that he has a tendency to exaggerate.
In his open letter, Depardieu admitted: “All my life I have been provocative, over-the-top, at times crude.
Read more on The Sun
“I have often done what others did not dare to do — test limits, shake up accepted wisdom. But I am not a rapist or a predator.”
His future will depend on France believing him or not.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/feed/
Grant Rollings
