The reputation of the 67-year-old singer, targeted by several complaints of sexual violence, seemed to be known to everyone for decades. In the artistic world, the fear of being “blacklisted” has dissuaded many women from expressing themselves.
“People who say they are amazed are liars”. This former “Star Academy” professor, who prefers to remain anonymous, does not mince her words: “The whole profession has always known that it has a problem with women.” She met Patrick Bruel on several occasions during the filming of shows. “The aim of the game, she slips, was to never find myself in an elevator with him.”
It has been more than two months since Mediapart revealed the first eight testimonies from women accusing the 67-year-old singer of sexual assault, attempted rape or rape. In their wake, around twenty others also claimed to have been victims of sexual violence on his part, always from Mediapart, but also from Elle and RTBF. The facts denounced extend from 1991 to 2019. Around ten complaints have been filed to date. Patrick Bruel remains presumed innocent and firmly contests the accusations against him. “He never sought to force anyone into a sexual act. He claims to have never overstepped a refusal, never forced a gesture or sexual intercourse,” defended his lawyer, Christophe Ingrain. Friday May 29, the singer announced that he would not participate in the next edition of Enfoirés, next January. He also decided to cancel all his concerts until the fall, including dates in Paris and festivals.
Since the latest revelations, a handful of celebrities publicly admitted to having heard about the behavior of the interpreter of Who has the right. Under a publication by the actress Andréa Bescond on Instagram, the actresses Alexandra Lamy and Chloé Jouannet (her daughter) or the former Miss France Valérie Bègue were the first to comment on these accusations of sexual violence. “We have known it for years”, “let him go and get treatment”launched, more directly, the singer Lio a few weeks later, on the set of “C à vous” on France 5. Thursday, the singer Zazie in turn spoke on Europe 1: “The great seducer, the flirt, it’s not a scoop. But obviously, given my character, you can imagine that if I had seen a third of a quarter of what is described by these women, I would talk to you about it, because it wouldn’t get through.” She is the only one within the Enfoirés, of which Patrick Bruel has been a pillar since 1993, to have reacted in her name to this day.
At the same time, numerous anonymous testimonies have flooded social networks, relayed by accounts such as “Balance ton agency”, created by whistleblower Anne Boistard to denounce violence in the advertising industry, or by that of doctor and author Baptiste Beaulieu. Franceinfo was able to speak with several witnesses: mainly women, and a few men, who describe an artist who would be inhabited by a feeling of “omnipotence” towards women. These anonymous personalities preferred, for the overwhelming majority, to express themselves under a pseudonym or via their first name only, terrified by the potential consequences on their career of speaking publicly. “Everyone is afraid of losing something”summarizes the former teacher of the “Star Academy”.
However, Patrick Bruel has had the reputation of an insistent man among young women for years. They seem to have been almost constantly warned about it. “Be careful: it’s Bruel you’re going to do”already heard Nathalie in 1996, when she was asked to take care of the singer, in the dressing rooms, for the Canal+ show “Nulle Part Else”. To guard against a possible “wandering hand” and camouflage her body, she claims to have arrived in overalls on the big day. “On site, the person at reception congratulated me, relieved that I had been warned”she remembers.
But upon seeing her, Patrick Bruel would have immediately given her a very intense look. “He had an intensity that was not at all natural, as if he were watching ice cream arrive when it’s hot”says the makeup artist. She says she immediately tried to distance herself. “I told him that I was doing French boxing and that he shouldn’t look for me. The problem was that it excited him. He replied: ‘I like it when we resist'” or again: ‘We want to see what’s under there'”, reports Nathalie, who confesses a feeling of helplessness despite her strong character.
“The whole company was built on the power of men. I was a small intermittent worker in the entertainment industry. I said to myself: ‘If you want to continue working, you have to keep quiet’.”
Nathalie, former makeup artistà franceinfo
Same feeling for Leslie, a variety pianist, when the singer showed up “immédiatement tactile” with her, in 2014, during the filming of “The Song of the Year”, a TF1 show. “They were caresses on the arm, on the back of the neck, arms around the neck”she describes, even though there were people around them.
“#Metoo had not yet passed. The vocabulary of the time was: ‘It’s unmanageable, super heavy, hot’.”
Leslie, musicianà franceinfo
Like Nathalie, she claims to have never forgotten the look that Patrick Bruel would have had on her: “It froze me. It was the look of a beast, of a predator.”
Elsa* also remembers it perfectly: “He had his eyes wide open and looked at me like I was the messiah, bordering on a trickle of drool,” assures the young woman, who crossed paths with the singer in 2017, during her first internship in the world of music. She was 23 at the time, he was 57. The same year, Adèle* was 24 when she took a photo with him at a literary event. She then worked for a national daily newspaper as a work-study journalist. Patrick Bruel, who is among an audience of prestigious guests, benefits, according to her, “to lower his hand on [sa] size and [lui] groping the buttocks”relates the journalist to franceinfo. “At that moment, I said to myself: ‘If he’s doing it in a public setting, with total impunity, it’s because he’s already done it several times. And it must be between four walls!’.” Adèle, who did not file a complaint, did not speak about it to her colleagues until several months later. “Yeah, he’s a playboy.”they simply comment.
In the artistic world, saucy nicknames have been circulating for years about the singer: “Babar”, “the nymphomaniac”or “half-baguette”, in reference to an anatomy that he would tend to exhibit.
Julie*, who, when very young, worked as a fixed-term contract on the organization of a festival in Occitanie in 2019, recounts having been warned, a few months before the artist’s arrival, during a briefing to the teams.
“The festival production clearly asked us not to leave the volunteers alone in the dressing rooms on the day he would be there, nor even backstage, on the side of the stage.”
Julie, former fixed-term contract at a festival in Occitanieà franceinfo
“We were also informed that he had a tendency to walk around without his clothesshe adds. Whether in his dressing room or in the corridors, he walked around completely naked. I have seen his private parts on several occasions”, reports the young woman, in her twenties at the time.
Antoine*, who worked on Patrick Bruel’s last tour in 2024, confirms the existence of “very clear instructions”, namely: “Never leave a woman alone with him in his dressing room. It was the same on the Enfoirés.” “And when we say: ‘It’s not normal’, we are told: ‘Yes, but since there have been accusations against him, we don’t want doubt to arise'”he reports, ulcerated. The singer had indeed been accused of sexual violence in 2019 by several masseuses. Their complaints were dismissed in the fall of 2020. The procedure has now been reopened by the Nanterre public prosecutor’s office, in light of the new accusations against the artist.
Antoine is not surprised that the testimonies revealed in recent weeks took so many years to come out. Notably because “a lot of people have an interest in him continuing to work. He generates so much money…” He believes that the artist’s tour mobilizes “100 to 200 jobs per day”. Thierry*, technician on around ten Enfoirés shows, puts forward the same explanation: “You have to realize how much a man like him makes.” He recalls that, despite the accusations, Patrick Bruel “continues to fill a theater every evening”, in Paris, even if a performance was interrupted by three feminist activists.
“Patrick Bruel is a salesman and supports a lot of people. I think that many around him preferred to turn a blind eye.”
Thierry, former technician on the Enfoirés concertsà franceinfo
The 50-year-old says he witnessed the behavior on several occasions “hyper pushy” of the singer with “very young women”. He even claims to have seen him flirting with his own 16-year-old daughter a few years ago. According to him, the reputation of “heavy dredger” of the singer within Les Enfoirés was widely known. When contacted, the management of Les Enfoirés did not respond to our requests.
Thierry observe : “The world of musical entertainment is a very small environment: we all know each other, it’s scary.” If someone speaks, they risk being quickly “blacklisté”. It is an environment “three patriarchal”, hi “the decision-makers are mainly men”, he regrets. “It’s been changing for several years, but not at the speed we need.”
Jean-Michel Aubry Journet, ambassador of the #MeTooMedia association and co-founder of the #MusicToo France collective created in 2020 to denounce sexist and sexual violence in the music industry, senses that “this whole era is going to fall.” He deplores that a large part of the men still in office “have not learned the basics of management, labor law, team management”. He is not surprised at the time it took the complainants to speak out regarding the behavior of a man who, over the years, had forged an image of“icône, of ideal gendre” in a world, that of music, where “the efforts of an entire team contribute to the success of a person”.
However, in cinema too, the actions accused of Patrick Bruel were known, seen and heard by everyone. Héloïse*, who worked with him on the set of Prénomin 2011, confirms the silence of the community. “I know people who worked with him and for whom his reputation was a total non-issue. As long as others don’t denounce, we don’t look into it. Because if you have Patrick Bruel in the casting, the project you create has a better chance of being financed”, she analyzes. In fact, the sixty-year-old has played in around fifty films since The Sirocco Coup, in 1979.
“It’s a world with a lot of people, a lot of bourgeoisie, very difficult to access. It all plays a role”, to explain the origins of this omerta, Héloïse puts forward. According to her, certain behaviors that are nevertheless reprehensible are also trivialized, because this “The environment is full of predators, many of them big men.”
It is therefore particularly difficult to express oneself in such conditions, especially since women who dare to denounce these actions then expose themselves to consequences. This is the bitter experience that Florence Mendez, at the origin of #Metoostandup at the start of 2024, had. Since then, the Belgian comedian and actress, who continues to speak out on Instagram about sexist and sexual violence, claims to have suffered a “boycott” media and from certain agents and press officers. “The rule is not to make waves. Nobody wants to work with people who make waves, because they will make your job difficult.”
“If there were even the slightest benefit to reporting sexual abusers, women wouldn’t wait as long to testify and many more of them would speak out.”
Florence Mendez, comedian and actressà franceinfo
The actress also remembers having had “a nervous giggle” during Patrick Bruel’s appearance on the show “C’est quasi sérieux” on Belgian radio, in 2018. In question according to her: a look “very insistent” of the singer who can destabilize. “When we see that Flavie Flament, rich and famous, first needed to testify anonymously, it shows the influence of this type of man in the artistic world”she emphasizes. Before revealing in mid-May on Mediapart that she had filed a complaint for rape against the singer, the host had in fact first expressed herself under the pseudonym “Eva” in the online media.
For Karine Huet, deputy general secretary of Snam-CGT, the musicians’ union of the CGT Spectacle, the fact that Flavie Flament is speaking should allow other women to take the plunge. The union is now demanding from the Ministry of Culture the withdrawal of the entertainment contractor’s license from the company 14 Productions, managed by the singer himself and which manages the organization of his concerts. The press release from the CGT Spectacle, relayed on X, recalls as follows: “The feeling of impunity remains one of the main causes of the persistence of sexist and sexual violence in the entertainment sector. Everything that the law allows today must therefore be activated to remedy it.”
*Les prénoms ont été modifiés.
If you are a witness or victim of domestic, sexist or sexual violence, you can call 3919. This helpline number is free, anonymous, open 24/7, accessible to deaf and hard of hearing people. This service is also reachable by chat on the website of the National Solidarity Federation for Women. It is also possible to send an online report. Other information is available on the website arretonslesviolences.gouv.fr. In case of emergency, dial 17 to contact the police or gendarmerie.Â
