Roman Polanski, the film director who was arrested and charged in 1977 with drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl, is facing new allegations.
Valentine Monnier has accused Polanski, 86, of raping her at Polanski’s chalet in Gstaad, Switzerland in 1975 when she was 18, according to The Guardian:
“I had no links with him, neither personal nor professional, and hardly knew him,” Monnier, a former model who worked in New York, said.
She said the alleged rape was “extremely violent”, adding: “He pummelled me until I gave in and then raped me, making me do all sorts of things.”
Monnier claimed that Polanski, who directed “China Town” and “Rosemary’s Baby,” assaulted her after the two had finished a ski run and had dinner.
“She said that they went back to his chalet and that she went to a room to change. ‘Life hadn’t taught me how to be suspicious yet,’ she told the French paper,” The Guardian wrote. “When Polanski called for her, he threw himself on her, hit her, ripped off her clothes, tried to make her swallow a pill and then raped her, she said. Afterward, Polanski apologized, she said. Monnier also said that she told her best friend about what happened, and then told someone who later would become her boyfriend. According to Le Parisien, they both recalled her telling them of the attack. She also confided in her husband in 1993.”
Polanski’s lawyer, Hervé Temime, told The Guardian that the director “firmly denies all accusations of rape,” adding that the allegations “which date back 45 years have never been reported to judicial authorities.”
But Monnier, a former model who worked in New York, explained why she has stayed silent. “Rape is a time bomb,” she said. After the Harvey Weinstein scandal, she wrote to the Los Angeles police and to Brigitte Macron, then the French first lady, Deadline reported.
“I denounce this crime knowing that there can’t be any punishment, in an attempt to end exceptions, impunity. Public figures are being considered as models. By idolizing the guilty ones, we prevent people from realizing the serious consequences of their acts,” Monnier told Le Parisien.
Polanski has a new movie about to hit theaters, “J’Accuse,” about the Alfred Dreyfus affair. He has not returned to the U.S. since 1978, when he pleaded guilty to statutory rape.
In 1977, Polanski was arrested and charged with drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl. The charges were beyond gross: Rape by use of drugs, perversion, sodomy, lewd and lascivious act upon a child under 14, and furnishing a controlled substance to a minor.
In 2017, the Los Angeles Police Department told the British newspaper, The Sun, they had an “open investigation” into the convicted child rapist. The new probe came as seven new accusers had come forward to say that Polanski raped or sexually assaulted them.
Marianne Barnard said she was sexually abused by Polanski when she was just 10 years old. “And five anonymous women alleged they had been sexually abused by Polanski via Imetpolanski.com, a website set up by women’s rights organisation Real Women Real Stories where victims can share their stories,” The Sun reported.
The alleged assaults took place between 1969 and 1976 and all of the women were then just girls between the ages of 9 and 16.