Depardieu ordered to stand trial for rape of actress Charlotte Arnould

French actor Gerard Depardieu, 76, will face trial on charges of raping and sexually assaulting actress Charlotte Arnould in 2018, judicial authorities confirmed.

Arnould, then 22 and suffering from anorexia, accused Depardieu of raping her twice at his Paris home.

She filed a complaint in 2018, and a judicial investigation was opened in 2020 after an initial dismissal for lack of evidence.

“I think I’m having trouble realising how huge this is. I’m relieved,” Arnould said after learning the case would go to court. Her lawyer described the ruling as “a form of judicial truth while awaiting the criminal trial.”

Depardieu denies the charges, insisting the encounters were consensual. In a 2023 letter to Le Figaro, he wrote: “Never, ever, have I abused a woman.”

This marks the first time Depardieu will stand trial for rape, though in May he was convicted of sexually assaulting two women on the set of Les Volets Verts in 2021 and given an 18-month suspended sentence.

He was ordered to register as a sex offender but is appealing the ruling.

Depardieu, whose career spans more than 250 films and an Oscar nomination for Cyrano de Bergerac, has seen his reputation damaged by multiple allegations in the wake of the #MeToo movement.

Arnould, now 29, has become a prominent voice for survivors of sexual violence in France.