Prolific Hollywood writer, director, and super-producer Luc Besson has been accused of sexual assault by actress Sand Van Roy.
“I was scared of dying, that was never very far away,” Van Roy told BFM TV news channel, according to the Daily Mail, of the alleged assault she says occurred earlier this year at the Cannes Film Festival.
“It was a crescendo, and even the next day I had so much pain that I passed out. And when it’s as violent as that, that’s called a rape,” Van Roy said. “I said stop, I told him clearly — it’s not just, no. There were tears, there was vomit. He forced humiliating sex acts on me. I showed my disgust. I showed that I did not want it. It’s also a no.”
The 27-year-old actress claimed Besson demanded sexual favors for film roles.
Van Roy — who last worked with Besson on 2017’s fantasy film Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets and on this year’s Taxi 5, for which Besson wrote the screenplay — is the second woman to accuse the French filmmaker of sexual assault.
CBS reports:
A 49-year-old casting director said that Besson assaulted her every time they took the elevator together and also claimed that Besson demanded sexual favors from her on set, reports the AFP news agency.
French authorities confirmed in May that the Fifth Element director was under investigation for an assault that allegedly took place at the Bristol hotel in the French capital.
“Luc Besson categorically denies these fantasist accusations,” the film-maker’s lawyer Thierry Marembert told AFP. “(The complainant) is someone he knows, towards whom he has never behaved inappropriately.”
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