Yesterday, Sunday October 16, Emmanuelle Seigner was the guest of Seven to Eight on TF1. She was received as part of the publication of her book, A Burning Life, in which she recounts her version of the Polanski affair and his arrest in Zurich in 2009 when he was preparing to be honored for the whole of her work. This is the first time that the actress has spoken out on the charges against her husband, Roman Polanski, now 89, to whom she has been married for 33 years. Through this testimony, she wishes to denounce the “drifts” which have transformed her husband into a “pariah to satisfy the spirit of the times”. In total, the filmmaker has been the subject of twelve accusations of rape, sexual assault and pedophilia, including nine by minor complainants at the time of the events. Eleven of these cases dating from before 1983 were revealed after 2010 and can therefore no longer be dealt with by American or even European justice. Reminder of the facts Only one case will be brought before the courts and will result in a judgment. These are the charges brought by Samantha Geimer against the director in 1977. First released on bail of 2,500 dollars, Roman Polanski was charged on March 24, 1977 with six counts of “having provided a substance prohibited to a minor, having engaged in licentious acts and debauchery, having been guilty of illicit sexual relations, perversion, sodomy and rape”.The lawyer for Roman Polanski and the lawyer for the Samantha Geimer’s family will reach an agreement with the judge to avoid a public trial, dropping some of the most serious charges. Polanski then pleaded guilty to “illegal sexual intercourse with a minor”. He will be sentenced to 90 days in prison, his incarceration will start on December 19, 1977 but he will be released on January 29, 1978 for “exemplary” conduct. to the gravity of the facts and when he learns that he risks up to fifty years in prison, Roman Polanski will leave the United States where he will never return. The filmmaker will be arrested in Switzerland in 2009, but, after a media scandal which will see him being supported by many personalities, he will not be extradited. Roman Polanski has always denied all the charges. Rape, assault, pedophilia: this is what Roman Polanski is accused of“He did not need to rape anyone”It is on this case that the actress – described as “a woman in love, damaged by years of legal, media and militant pressure” by Harry Roselmack in the introduction to the portrait – returned to the microphone of Audrey Crespo-Mara. In this fifteen-minute interview, she unfailingly supports her husband, the father of his two children, and justifies his actions by “a very permissive time”. “The relation to age, too, has changed a lot. We rented the Lolita, we celebrated it. So me, having started modeling at 14, it was not a story that shocked me. We are not obliged to applaud this time, but it was like that”, she explains, insisting on the good relations that Samantha Geimer maintains with her husband and “who can no longer take this status of victim“. Asked by the journalist about the eleven other charges against Polanski, Emmanuelle Seigner replied: “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 a crazy thing, it was crazy. He was 52 years old, he looked like he was 30, he was a great director, so he was very attractive and I think he did not need to rape anyone”, also lamenting that the presumption of innocence is today “totally flouted”. Describing a pariah life for her husband but also for her, she condemns “a world that is going crazy” and “the abuses of the #Metoo movement“. “It’s very good that speech is freed, but we are witnessing a lot of excesses, abuses, lies which discredit these victims and which do them a disservice”, proclaims Emmanuelle Seigner. When Audrey Crespo-Mara evokes the César scandal in 2020 where Roman Polanski will be awarded the César for best director and will cause the departure of several actresses and directors from the assembly, Emmanuelle Seigner chooses to discredit Adèle Haenel’s anger on the grounds that in 2014, six years before the outcry at the 2020 ceremony, she would have complimented her on her nomination for her role in her husband’s film, The Furry Venus. And to conclude: “Leave him alone. Let them take care of the real predators, people who are a real danger to society and leave them alone”.
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