We hadn’t seen him on a television set for three years. Back on stage, Richard Berry accepted Bruce Toussaint’s invitation on Tuesday February 27 to promote his new play entitled L’Audience est Ouvert. The actor has remained out of the spotlight since his daughter, Coline, accused him of incest. An investigation was opened and closed in 2022 for prescription. The actor’s ex-partner, singer Jeane Manson, also accused by Coline Berry of sexual assault, filed a complaint for defamation and won her case twice, once in court and once on appeal. The Court of Cassation finally annulled the conviction of Coline Berry-Rojtman. For his part, Richard Berry never filed a complaint against his daughter.
“I do not wish to feed this media column, because these accusations are false,” warns the actor on the set of Bonjour! La Matinale TF1. “This conflict with my daughter was one of the most painful moments of my life as a man and a father,” he explains. “Today [claiming my innocence] is not audible. The movement is so strong that whatever anyone says, it will turn against me (…) I trust justice,” affirms the one who puts into voice, on stage, the great pleadings which marked the history of French justice. He explains that he has not seen his daughter since she sued him. “It’s something very shocking, very painful,” he confides.
When asked if he was ever afraid of returning to the public eye following this legal affair, the actor replied that he did not see why he would stop his profession: “And how can you defend yourself from a crime we didn’t commit? I haven’t stopped playing and the audience is there, in Paris or on tour. The public understood that there were double standards,” said Richard Berry. Although affected by these accusations which he considers false, the 73-year-old actor is on the other hand encouraging towards the movement to free the speech of women attacked in the cinema, embodied since the beginning of the month of February by Judith Godrèche, whose courage he salutes. He recalls that he also has two other daughters: “Those words protect them,” he says with a smile.