Nicolas Bedos, director of the films “OSS 117 3” and “Masquerade”, has been in police custody since Wednesday following the filing of a complaint for sexual assault. He will be tried in early 2024, according to the Paris prosecutor’s office.
Director Nicolas Bedos, targeted by a complaint for sexual assault, has been in police custody since Wednesday June 21, 2023 in Paris, revealed Agence France-Presse (AFP) confirming information from Actu17. The person behind this complaint, filed on June 12 in the police station of the third arrondissement of Paris, is a 25-year-old woman.
The facts date back to the night of June 1 to 2, 2023, in a club in the first arrondissement of Paris where the young woman had gone with an actress friend, her brother and a few friends. In her complaint, she explains that Nicolas Bedos, whom she does not recognize immediately, would have stared at her for a long time before approaching her. He would then have “slid[ed] his hand at the level of her private parts, over her pants” then she would have felt a “friction”. The complainant was then alone with the director. She thinks that none of her relatives could have witnessed the attack she reports. She also insists that she did not drink alcohol. The young woman says she pushed him away before saying, “Go get treatment!” At the time of the events, a security guard would have quickly been challenged by the commotion and would have asked the complainant if everything was fine. To which she would have replied “Fire him!”.
According to Le Monde, Nicolas Bedos told the investigators that he did not question the testimony of the complainant. He nevertheless guarantees that, “if this gesture existed”, it “can only be accidental”. According to the Paris prosecutor’s office, he will be tried in early 2024 for sexual assault while intoxicated.
The name of Nicolas Bedos is certainly not unknown to you, and it is quite normal: in addition to being the son of comedian Guy Bedos and Joëlle Bercot, he is a director and screenwriter recognized in the world of French cinema. He notably directed his first film, Mr. and Mrs. Adelman, in 2017, before releasing the critical success La Belle Époque in 2019. This last film, with Daniel Auteuil and Fanny Ardant, was nominated eleven times for the Césars and won the prize for Best Original Screenplay. Subsequently, Nicolas Bedos directed Oss 117: Red Alert in Black Africa, released in 2021 and screened at the closing of the Cannes Film Festival. More recently, he released the film Masquerade in 2022, which was critically divided.
Nicolas Bedos is also a controversial public figure. In 2012, he was fined 2,000 euros for publicly insulting the police. He was also convicted of drunk driving in 2010 and 2014 (also that year for contempt and death threats against police officers). He was then given a three-month suspended prison sentence and a fine of 800 euros. He was indicted in 2014 for racial insult after a column in Marianne, but was finally released the following year, who considered that his remarks were not to be taken at face value. Finally, in 2020, a message on his Instagram account calling for people to stop wearing a mask in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic caused controversy on social networks.
