Room 17 of the Paris judicial court set, this Tuesday, March 5, 2024, the trial of Roman Polanski for “defamation”. The filmmaker was charged in 2021 after a complaint filed by British actress Charlotte Lewis. She criticizes Roman Polanski for having made, in an interview with Paris Match, comments questioning the veracity of the sexual abuse of which he has accused him for more than 10 years.
At 89 years old today, Roman Polanski has never been tried in France. In matters of defamation, referral to court is almost automatic, to the extent that the charges filed are examined in court.
The editorial director of paris party who had published the criticized interview will also be judged in this trial. In this article, Roman Polanski had stated in particular: “You see, the first quality of a good liar is an excellent memory. Charlotte Lewis is always mentioned on the list of my accusers without ever noticing the contradictions in her.”
“terrible lie”
Accusing her of a “hateful lie”, the filmmaker mentioned statements attributed to the actress in an interview he gave in 1999 to the British tabloid News of the World.
The filmmaker underlined the following phrase attributed to Charlotte Lewis in 1999: “I knew that Roman had done something wrong in the United States, but I wanted to be his lover (…). She probably loved him more than he did. a”.
The actress, however, questioned the veracity of these past comments in 2010. “Many of the quotes attributed to me in the News of the World article are not accurate,” she said.
After the interview published in paris partyCharlotte Lewis’s lawyers had filed a civil action complaint in March 2020, which led to the filmmaker’s referral to criminal court.
Contacted by AFP, Me Delphine Meillet, one of Polanski’s lawyers, declined to comment.
Born in 1967, Charlotte Lewis had acted in the film pirates directed by Roman Polanski in 1986. In 2010, she told a press conference in Los Angeles that she had been “sexually abused” by the filmmaker when she was 16 years old.
Source: BFM TV
