In recent weeks, many women have accused Patrick Bruel of sexual violence, leading to the opening of several judicial information in France and abroad. On Friday May 15, one of them, who had already testified anonymously to Mediapart under the pseudonym “Eva”, chose to speak openly. This is Flavie Flament who, through the investigative media, implicates the 67-year-old singer for rape. The alleged facts date back to 1991, in the artist’s Parisian apartment, when she was only 16 years old and beginning her career after being revealed during the Miss OK Podium election.
On Wednesday May 13, Flavie Flament officially filed a complaint for rape, hoping that the multiplicity and the repetition of the testimonies will allow the justice system to examine his case despite the potential prescription of the facts. In this context, the Paris prosecutor ordered the regrouping of different complaints filed on the national territory. At the same time, a separate investigation was opened in Belgium following another report.
“We’re on his bed, he’s putting my pants back on” : Flavie Flament describes the night spent at Patrick Bruel’s house
This Monday, May 18, Flavie Flament decided to deliver a video interview to Mediapart, to tell the rape she allegedly suffered at Patrick Bruel’s house. By freeing herself to speak, the former presenter of Stars at home says she wants “give echo” to “voice” of other women. Facing the camera, Antoine Flament’s mother remembers going to Patrick Bruel’s home after a day of photo shooting for a magazine. “I went to his home, I remember his apartment very precisely, I never forgot”she explains, before returning to the suggestion of the singer who offered her tea. “I don’t refuse tea, because it’s still something, I’m impressed”she adds, before talking about her blackout. “And there, I think I’m diving into something because I have an absence, a total blackout”, she explains.
On the other hand, Flavie Flament subsequently adds that she “un souvenir extrêmement précis” from the moment she leaves this state. “I open my eyes, there I see him, we are on his bed and he is putting my pants back on and my thoughts are extremely powerful, in fact they are astonishingly vivid”, she remembers. The facilitator feels “like a shift” à ce moment précis car son corps “does not respond”. “It’s a huge fear, because I see that he is putting my pants back on and buttoning them up. And I still see her hair and her brown curls and I don’t understand anything that happened to me. I have this feeling deep inside that I am an object, my body is not responding and in fact it is doing its work“she adds. “There, he sees that I’m awake and he says to me: ‘Okay, come on, I’ll take you back'”. And it is precisely this memory that Flavie Flament chooses to make public today.
Why does Patrick Bruel deny Flavie Flament’s accusations?
Faced with the seriousness of Flavie Flament’s accusations, Patrick Bruel delivered his version of the facts in a long message published on Instagram, Sunday May 17. In the latter, the singer places their meeting at the beginning of the 1990sat a period when her career was already established while the young woman was starting hers. According to him, they crossed paths and then saw each other again several times and experienced what he describes as “brève histoire”. He states that, from his point of view, “this relationship was neither violent, nor constrained, nor sneaky”and he rejects any idea of abuse of power or manipulation.
The singer also denies having used substances or a trap, writing that “there was neither rape nor drugs”. He refutes certain details of Flavie Flament’s testimony. “I never mistreated her, nor abandoned her in front of a ‘sordid hotel'”he says before recalling that they met again for years, in private as well as on sets. “I don’t understand why, suddenly today, Flavie Flament is telling a different and sordid story”he added. While affirming that he will continue to practice his profession, he concludes by recalling his attachment to “most fundamental principles” of the société, Ã savoir “the presumption of innocence, the right to a fair investigation, and Justice”.
