Roman Polanski, who previously admitted to sexually abusing a 13-year-old girl before fleeing to Europe in the late-70s, has been slapped with yet another rape allegation.
According to The Guardian, French woman Valentine Monnier told Le Parisien newspaper that Polanski violently raped her at a Swiss ski resort when she was just 18 back in 1975.
“I had no links with him, neither personal nor professional, and hardly knew him,” Monnier, now 63, told the paper. “He pummelled me until I gave in and then raped me, making me do all sorts of things.”
Monnier claims that the alleged rape occurred after the two enjoyed dinner at a restaurant following a day of skiing. When she went to her own room, Polanski reportedly called for her and then began ripping her clothes off while trying to force a pill in her mouth. Monnier told two individuals of the rape, her best friend and another man, both of whom corroborated her account.
Monnier said that the accusations against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein and the fact Polanski himself had just finished a movie about injustice inspired her to come forward with her story. She has since written letters about the alleged rape to Los Angeles police and to the French first lady, Brigitte Macron.
“The reaction time is not worth forgetting,” Monnier said. “Rape is a time bomb.”
Polanski’s attorney Hervé Temime said that the director “firmly denies all accusations of rape”, noting that the 45-year-old allegations “have never been reported to judicial authorities.”
In May of last year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences finally expelled Roman Polanski for the sexual abuse of 13-year-old Samantha Geimer only to have him file a lawsuit one year later, alleging that the Academy had failed to follow its own rules when ousting a member from their ranks.
“The Academy committed a prejudicial abuse of discretion in that the Academy failed to proceed in a manner required by law, the Academy’s expulsion decision is not supported by the findings, and the Academy’s findings are not supported by the evidence,” Polanski said in a lawsuit filed in L.A. Superior Court.
In response to the lawsuit, an Academy spokesperson said the procedure for his expulsion was “fair and reasonable.”
“The procedures taken to expel Mr. Polanski were fair and reasonable,” an Academy spokesperson said Friday afternoon, according to Deadline. “The Academy stands behind its decision as appropriate.”
Strangely, at the time of Polanski’s ouster from the Academy, Samantha Geimer said the Academy made an “ugly and cruel” decision.
“It is an ugly and cruel action which serves only appearance,” said Geimer, then age 55. “It does nothing to change the sexist culture in Hollywood today and simply proves that they will eat their own to survive. I say to Roman, good riddance to bad rubbish, the Academy has no true honor, it’s all just P.R.”
Geimer was only 13 years old when Polanski drugged and sodomized her during a photoshoot at Jack Nicholson’s house in 1977. During the height of the #MeToo movement, as many as five women came forward to accuse Roman Polanski of sexually assaulting them when they were teenagers.