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Rise and fall of Le Hellraiser: How Gerard Depardieu, 75, went from grave robbing and stealing cars to urinating in a passenger jet aisle, befriending Putin and 'sparking French MeToo movement' as rape claims mount up against cinema legend
For decades, Gerard Depardieu has been known as one of France's greatest and most prolific actors, starring in hundreds of films, television productions and plays.
The 75-year-old Oscar-nominated thespian has portrayed numerous historical and fictitious figures including Georges Danton, Joseph Stalin, Honoré de Balzac, Alexandre Dumas, Christopher Columbus and Cyrano de Bergerac.
This reputation as a French film great is perhaps only matched by his renown for hellraising, and over the years, the public - and Depardieu himself - have revelled in his wild excesses, including his drinking and womanising.
He has over the years relieved himself in front of fellow passengers on a plane, boasted of his youth as a grave-robbing rent boy and cosied up to some of the world's most feared autocrats - including Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un.
However, the limit of what many among the French public were willing to ascribe to his mischievous nature appeared to reach a limit when a series of women accused Depardieu of rape and sexual assault.
For decades, Gérard Depardieu (pictured) has been known as one of France 's greatest and most prolific actors, starring in hundreds of films, television productions and plays - while also gaining a reputation for his mischievous and impish antics
However, the limit of what many among the French public were willing to ascribe to Depardieu's mischievous nature appeared to reach a limit when a series of women accused Depardieu of rape and sexual assault
The Frenchman's legal woes deepened on Monday when police summoned him for questioning over suspected incidents of sexual assault with a view towards placing him in custody, a police source said. Pictured: Police are seen outside the station Depardieu was taken to on Monday for questioning after two women accused him of sexual assault
The cinema legend was first accused in August 2018 by Charlotte Arnould, who alleged he raped her that year when she was 22 and anorexic.
Since then, more than a dozen women have come forward with their own claims against him, and in 2020 Police charged Depardieu with rape and sexual assault.
The Frenchman's legal woes deepened on Monday when police summoned him for questioning over suspected incidents of sexual assault with a view towards placing him in custody, a police source said.
Police were to question the 75-year-old actor over allegations by two women that he assaulted them - one on a film set in 2021 and the other on another shoot in 2014, the source said, confirming a report by the BFMTV television channel.
Many have likened the cascading allegations against Depardieu to those made against US media mogul Harvey Weinstein, which sparked the #MeToo movement in which women publicised their experiences of sexual abuse.
The movement has led to calls within the French cinema industry to tackle sexual violence and physical abuse which some says has gone unchallenged for years.
These calls have grown in recent months, with the industry being rocked by allegations that it has shrugged off sexism and sexual abuse for decades, and criticism that the arts have too long provided cover for abuse.
Film director Luc Besson was accused by Dutch actress Sand Van Roy of repeatedly raping her at a Paris hotel in 2018, and Patrick Poivre d'Arvor, one of France's best-known TV presenters, was accused of rape.
Both men firmly denied the accusations.
Depardieu, too, has strongly denied all the accusations against him. In an open letter last October, he said: 'I have never, ever abused a woman.'
Many have likened the cascading allegations against Depardieu to those made against US media mogul Harvey Weinstein, which sparked the #MeToo movement in which women publicised their experiences of sexual abuse
Depardieu kisses actress Catherine Deneuve as they pose to promote the movie 'Asterix und Obelix - Im Auftrag ihrer Majestaet' in Berlin October 1, 2012
The actor has been very open about his escapades in the past.
In a 2014 interview, Depardieu said that he frequently consumed up to 14 bottles of alcohol a day - saying he would start at 10am with champagne, wine and pastis and end the day with vodka, whisky or both.
His 2014 autobiography 'That's the Way It Was' shed some light as to why.
'I'm obsessed with the racket in my body, the beating of my heart, the gurgling of my intestines, my joints cracking,' he wrote.
'It's become a phobia to the point that if I'm alone in a hotel, I must drink so as not to hear it, so as not to go mad from it. I can't get to sleep unless I am dead drunk.'
In that same memoir, he also wrote about his troubled childhood in Châteauroux.
One of five siblings, Depardieu's father was an illiterate, alcoholic metalworker and his mother had considered aborting him.
He wrote that when he was a child, his family were so poor they ate hedgehogs.
He described working as a male escort at an early age, writing: 'I've known since I was very young that I please homosexuals. I would ask them for money.'
Not only did Depardieu prostitute himself to lorry drivers as a schoolboy, but he also dug up graves to loot the dead of their jewellery and even their shoes.
He left home at 12 and took up with two prostitutes, moving to Paris and breaking into acting, he admitted in his memoir, for the money.
Depardieu spent time in prison for car theft but was saved from homelessness by a gay theatrical talent-spotter who paid for him to study drama.
French director Bertrand Blier, who helped Depardieu to overnight domestic stardom by handing him the role of a violent criminal in the 1974 film Les Valseuses, also once said he was also a thug off-screen.
Depardieu (left) has admitted to having a 'hooligan side' to his personality, bragging that this was probably why Russian despot Vladimir Putin is fond of him
Depardieu attends a military parade and mass rally on Kim Il Sung square in Pyongyang on September 9, 2018 to celebrate the country's 70th anniversary
Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov (left) welcomes Depardieu to Grozny
'We literally had to follow him at night to stop him getting into punch-ups,' Blier once recalled. 'He would deliberately go into the most dangerous areas, looking for trouble. Even now when he arrives at the door, I think, 'Where are the valuables?'.'
But from that point onwards, his career as an actor took off.
Depardieu has worked in 250 films since 1967, almost all as the lead, working with over 150 film directors. He is also the second highest grossing film actor in French cinema history, behind only Louis de Funès.
His body of work also includes countless television productions and 18 plays, and he has been nominated for dozens of awards, including the César for Best Actor in a Leading Role 17 times (winning it twice) as well as one Oscar nomination.
His tumultuous personal life did not end with his success, however.
He has admitted to having a 'hooligan side' to his personality, bragging that this was probably why Russian despot Vladimir Putin is fond of him.
The pair were seen embracing in 2013 after the actor was given Russian citizenship.
This was after Depardieu moved to Belgium in fury over French tax rates for high earners - although he has since rolled back on his support for Putin, strongly criticising the Russian leader over his 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Depardieu is also friends with Ramzan Kadyrov, president of the Chechen Republic, a brutal former rebel warlord and Putin ally who has been personally accused of torture and murder. Depardieu attended his birthday party in 2012.
Depardieu and French food processing leader Gerard Bourgoin are seen with Cuban leader Fidel Castro on November 27, 1996 in Havana, Cuba
Former FIFA President Sepp Blatter is accompanied by Depardieu as he arrives before the FIFA Ballon d'Or 2012 Gala at the Kongresshaus in Zurich, Switzerland, January 2013
Six years later, he even mysteriously turned up among the goose-stepping soldiers and oppressed citizens of North Korea to celebrations in Pyongyang of the pariah state's 70th anniversary.
Depardieu also hit headlines for the wrong reasons in 2011 when he urinated in the aisle of a Paris-to-Dublin Air France flight after being told he had to wait 15 minutes before using the lavatories.
In 2013, he was fined after falling off his scooter while driving drunk - one of as many as 18 motorcycle accidents he had suffered by 2021. He is also reported to weigh around 20 stone and has had at least five heart bypass operations.
His consumption of alcohol is legendary, with one anecdote suggesting he consumed a bottle of hair lotion - thinking it was a liqueur. On one occasion, he made a foul-mouthed rant at a World War One commemoration event.
Despite this, he has insisted: 'I'm never totally drunk, just a little p***ed.'
The Frenchman's fondness for wine is such that he runs an award-winning vineyard in the Medoc and once boasted that he consumes as much as five bottles of wine a day - more when he is depressed, marginally less when in a good mood. 'I'm happy with very little on this earth,' he once said, 'but I do like to have a lot in my glass.'
In addition to his reputation as a drinker, he is also famed for his womanising. His former lovers include Bond Girl and 'face' of Chanel No 5 Carole Bouquet.
However, he has also admitted to not being a good father to the four children he has had with various partners. They include the late Guillaume, by Depardieu's marriage to his Jean de Florette co-star Elisabeth Guignot.
Guillaume inherited his father's wild streak. After being jailed for heroin and theft offences, he lost a leg in a motorcycle accident and died of pneumonia aged 37.
Depardieu has admitted his children are ashamed to bear his name and Guillaume's sister, actress Julie Depardieu, even had plastic surgery five times because - she said - she couldn't bear to look like her 'hoodlum' father.
Depardieu gestures as he arrives at the Rome International Film Festival, October 21, 2007
Depardieu is seen with a group of friends at his vineyard in Algeria, Saint-Augustin
In a 2014 interview, Depardieu said that he frequently consumed up to 14 bottles of alcohol a day - saying he would start at 10am with champagne, wine and pastis and end the day with vodka, whisky or both
Depardieu's impish lifestyle has been viewed by many in a different light since 2018 when Charlotte Arnould alleged Depardieu raped her - the he first of a string of accusations against the actor.
There is CCTV footage of Depardieu performing a sex act on Ms Arnould at his Paris mansion in August 2018, but he insists it was consensual.
Ms Arnould renounced her legal right to anonymity at the end of 2021, following Depardieu being charged with rape and sexual assault by police.
Within a few days of his indictment, Depardieu was back working by the Seine River location of the police drama Maigret And The Dead Girl - also by Georges Simenon - in which he starred with Jade Labeste.
Within a few days of his indictment, Depardieu was back working by the Seine River location of the police drama Maigret And The Dead Girl - also by Georges Simenon - in which he starred with Jade Labeste.
In October, he broke his silence over claims that he is a serial sex abuser saying: 'I am neither a rapist nor a predator.'
Accusing enemies of subjecting him to a 'lynching' in the media, he expressed his anger in an open letter to the French press.
Last year, a criminal enquiry was opened into the suspected suicide of a French actress who had accused Depardieu of sexual violence.
It was feared that the last hours of Emmanuelle Debever, 60, may have been linked to the multiple abuse accusations levelled by women against Depardieu.
A younger Depardieu is seen starring in the 1976 movie L'ultima donna (the last woman)
Depardieu (left) is seen starring in 2002's Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra
She died on December 7th - the exact day a new documentary entitled Gérard Depardieu: The Fall of the Ogre was broadcast across France.
It contained disturbing details of an alleged attack by Depardieu on Ms Debever, when she was still a teenager.
In December, another French actress filed a formal sex attack complaint against Depardieu, saying he treated her like 'a piece of meat'.
Paris prosecutors confirmed that Hélène Darras, 43, reported Depardieu in September.
The pair appeared together in the 2007 film Disco, when Darras was 26, and allegedly assaulted.
Waiving her legal right to anonymity, Ms Darras told the same Further Investigation (Complément d'enquete) documentary series: 'He [Depardieu] 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.'
And in December 2023, Spanish journalist and writer Ruth Baza filed a complaint in Spain against the actor for rape, for acts dating back to 1995 in Paris.
News of Depardieu's arrest on Monday came after French actress Charlotte Arnould (pictured) went public with her accusation that Depardieu raped her in his Paris mansion in 2018
Last year, a criminal enquiry was opened into the suspected suicide of a French actress who had accused Depardieu of sexual violence. It was feared that the last hours of Emmanuelle Debever, 60, may have been linked to the multiple abuse accusations levelled by women against Depardieu
Then on Monday, French police detained Depardieu for questioning after two women accused him of sexual assault, a source close to the case said.
Police were to question Depardieu over two women alleging that he assaulted them - one on a film set in 2021 and the other on a shoot in 2014, a police source said, confirming a report by the BFMTV television channel.
The actor's lawyers, Christian Saint-Palais and Beatrice Geissmann Achille, did not immediately reply to a request from AFP for comment.
The first woman accuses him of having assaulted her when she was a member of the crew on the 2022 feature film 'The Green Shutters'.
The set designer, who filed a formal complaint in February, told investigative website Mediapart that Depardieu grabbed her as she left the set in a private hotel in Paris.
She alleged he groped her 'waist and stomach, moving up to (her) breasts' and made obscene comments before his bodyguards removed him. The woman's lawyer, Carine Durrieu-Diebolt, declined to provide AFP with further details.
The second woman has alleged Depardieu groped her 'all over' and made 'inappropriate' remarks while she was an assistant on the set of 2015 film 'Le magician et le Siamois'.
A topless feminist activist hold a placard during a demonstration against sexism in France, at Place Saint Augustin in Paris, on January 11, 2024
Women from the feminist movement Femenjoin a rally against sexual violence on January 11, 2024 in Paris, France
Despite the string of allegations, a number of notable French figures have defended Depardieu, including president Emmanuel Macron.
Perhaps illustrating France's traditionally more laissez-faire attitude to sexual matters, 100 prominent French women attacked the MeToo Movement in a letter defending men's 'freedom to bother women'.
Mr Macron appeared on a TV chat show and said he detested the actor being subjected to a 'manhunt' - although he later rowed back on his comments saying that he should have mentioned his unequivocal support for victims of abuse.
'I haven't said enough how important it is for women who are victims of abuse to speak out, and how crucial this fight is to me,' Macron said, while standing by his defense of Depardieu's presumed innocence until proven guilty.