At the beginning of January, Belgian comedian Florence Mendez revealed on Instagram that she had received testimony from women who accused stand-upper Seb Mellia of sexual violence. “One speaks of a consensual, but brutal, relationship. Another describes being pinned against a wall and forcefully kissed. The last two tell of forced sex, including sodomy, with removal of the condom during the act without their consent,” explains the artist in a now deleted publication.
The next day, she received new testimonies reporting “rapes, attempted rapes, very insistent messages, consensual but brutal relationships,” she said in another Instagram post where we could read extracts published with the consent of the women concerned. This post has since been deleted as well. Florence Mendez ended up declaring that she was going to “hand over”. “I will redirect the victims to an association which can provide them with psychological and legal help if they wish, as well as to trusted journalists if they want to speak to them,” she wrote. She would have received around twenty testimonies in total. These women have not yet testified on their own behalf to date.
Saturday January 13 in the evening, at the call of Florence Mendez, activists and supporters of the movement
Seb Mellia, for his part, was slow to react to the accusations made against him. He spoke on Instagram on Monday evening after making his X account private and closing his YouTube channel. In his stories, he denounces “a cabal against [him]” which has “reached its limits”, indicates Le Parisien. The stand-up artist, who specifies that his “silence is not a confession”, turns to justice.
