Guest of Quelle époque, on France 2 on Saturday, Pauline Desmonts spoke for the first time on the affair which weighs on her companion, Nicolas Bedos. The director has been the target of an investigation for rape and sexual assault since July 5. Two complaints, including that for rape, were dismissed due to the statute of limitations. Summoned by the Paris Criminal Court in February 2024 for sexual assault while drunk, Nicolas Bedos must also appear in court in September for a sexual assault on a woman in a nightclub in May 2023.
On the set of France 2, Pauline Desmonts, who gave birth to their first child in December, deplored the way in which the series Alphonse, directed by Nicolas Bedos, was “boycotted” by Amazon Prime which released it “on the sly » and “stashed” it on his platform. “It’s the first time we’ve seen this, that a French work has been canceled,” the director’s partner is alarmed. For me it’s cancellation which doesn’t speak its name when we release a series but we deprive it of any form of exposure, of any form of promotion.” Pauline Desmonts explains that the production prohibited the actors and Nicolas Bedos from speaking in the media. “Amazon muzzled the entire team, Nicolas included, following these accusations, under penalty of not releasing it. They respect the presumption of innocence because they release it, but by sacrificing it completely,” she adds, bitterly.
The actors, including Jean Dujardin, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Pierre Arditi and Nicole Garcia, would however have liked to express themselves, if not on the affair, at least on the project which addresses “an unprecedented theme”, assures Pauline Desmonts. Alphonse tells the story of a forty-year-old in the midst of his professional collapse who discovers a vocation for the profession of gigolo. What follows are encounters with eccentric women with fantasies, each more comical than the last, over the course of six episodes.
Also read: “Alphonse by Nicolas Bedos breaks the codes of an era marked by puritanism”
Pauline Desmonts was keen to dissociate the affair surrounding her partner from the scandals rocking French cinema and called not to “make amalgams”, not to “put all cases in the same bag.” “The nature and context of the alleged facts are different. We’re talking about excess partying and alcohol in a festive setting,” she explains before adding: “If Nicolas regrets one thing, it’s having continued to go out like a teenager that he is no longer and this affair has accelerated this awareness. “It’s a problem he’s nursing and you’re not likely to see him in a nightclub for a while.”
The young woman anticipates the remarks that the spectators might make: “They will say that I am judge and jury, but I know him by heart, I know what state he could have gotten into. But when he is in these states, it is not targeted at women, he could also have hurt his friends… He can be hateful, he can be excessive, but he is not a sexual attacker. »
