Roman Polanski will be tried for defamation following the complaint filed by Charlotte Lewis, who accuses him of sexual abuse committed when she was sixteen years old. He had called her accusations "an odious lie" in an interview for Paris Match.
In December 2019, Roman Polanski made the front page of Paris Match magazine with a long interview in which he returned, in particular, on the accusations of rape made against him by Charlotte Lewis. He then called the words of the actress of "odious lie". The 89-year-old director is referred to the criminal court in Paris by an order dated August 30, following the complaint for defamation filed by the former actress, according to information from AFP.
With this procedure, Roman Polanski will be tried for defamation; it is his first trial in France related to accusations of sexual assault, rape and pedocriminality that weigh on him. In October 2021, the director was indicted for "committing the crime of public defamation against a private individual" following the complaint filed by Charlotte Lewis against him. Eleven years earlier, the actress had assured that she was a victim of "sexual abuse" committed by the director, when she was 16 years old. The alleged facts would have occurred in the apartment of the filmmaker in Paris. The actress, now 55 years old, had turned for Roman Polanski in 1896 in the film Pirates.
In the interview with Paris Match, Roman Polanski said: "You see, the first quality of a good liar is an excellent memory. Charlotte Lewis is always mentioned in the list of my accusers without ever pointing out these contradictions." The filmmaker was referring to an interview with Charlotte Lewis published by a British tabloid in 1999. The newspaper reported her as saying: "I knew that Roman had done something wrong in the United States, but I wanted to be his mistress […]". Charlotte Lewis disputed the way her words were reported and the statements that were attributed to her on several occasions. Last December, Le Parisien revealed the account of a key witness, whose version of events corroborated in detail the statement of alleged facts defended by Charlotte Lewis.
The director of publication of Paris Match will also be judged, according to AFP. Delphine Millet, the filmmaker's lawyer, told the agency that she "did not know if Roman Polanski intended to appear".