A reaction to the camera. This Monday, May 18, “Mediapart” published a video by Flavie Flament, filmed last Saturday, in which she responds to the defense of Patrick Bruel’s lawyers. She accused him of drugging and raping her at his home in 1991 when she was 16. Presumed innocent, the singer denied these accusations this Sunday on Instagram.
After testifying anonymously on May 7 in “Mediapart”, the France Télévisions presenter decided to file a complaint against Patrick Bruel on May 13 and explain her reasons in a post on Instagram. “It’s a long process to speak out and to speak out so publicly […] I told myself that my voice would most certainly echo voices that we have been hearing for years now, for weeks,” she continued in the video posted online this Monday.
Flavie Flament « absolument sidérée »
After Flavie Flament’s complaint was brought to light, Céline Lasek, one of the singer’s lawyers reacted on franceinfo by indicating that it was an “episodic and consensual relationship between them”. “She was 16 years old and at the time, nothing prohibited a relationship between a minor and an adult over 15 years old,” added Patrick Bruel’s advice.
Faced with these statements, the 51-year-old presenter said she was “speechless” and “absolutely stunned”: “What do we mean by an episodic relationship? I saw him once when I met him, once in his apartment on rue de Jussieu and the number of times I was forced to receive him on my television shows.” And to underline: “I am absolutely formal; I have never had any kind of relationship with Patrick Bruel.” Concerning the presence of the singer in her broadcasts on TF1, she confided that she had no choice of her guests at the time and that she refused to receive him subsequently.
Patrick Bruel speaks on Instagram
On Instagram, this Sunday, May 17, after filming Flavie Flament’s video, Patrick Bruel reaffirmed his innocence. The artist assured that he had “a brief history” with the host and that “this relationship was neither violent, nor coerced, nor sneaky”: “There was neither rape nor drugs. I never mistreated her, nor abandoned her in front of a “sordid hotel”. “Those who knew us then, those who have known us since, those who have seen us come together over the years, on sets as in life, have never perceived between us anything other than a complicity born of common memories,” he concluded.
This Monday, May 18, the Nanterre public prosecutor’s office decided to reopen an investigation into rape which had been closed without further action in 2022. This concerns the complaint of Ophélie Fajfer, filed in 2021 for alleged facts dating back to 2015. “My client is extremely happy that it was the courts which decided to reopen the investigation,” declared the plaintiff’s lawyer.
