Maïwenn, the French actress and director whose latest feature film, Joan of Barrystarring Johnny Depp, opens this year’s Cannes Film Festival, is charged with assault by a French journalist.
Edwy Plenel, the editor-in-chief of Media part, an online investigative newspaper, filed a complaint with French police alleging that Maïwenn assaulted him on Feb. 22 while dining at a restaurant in Paris’ posh seventh arrondissement. The police report was leaked to French media on Friday, a day after Cannes announced that Maïwenn’s film will premiere next month.
The complaint, filed on March 7, accuses Maïwenn of aggression. Plenel claims he was dining with a lawyer when Maïwenn, who had been sitting alone at another table, came over, violently grabbed his hair and spat in his face before storming out. Quoting from the complaint, the AFP news agency said Plenel, although not physically injured, was “traumatized by the incident”.
The Hollywood Reporter has contacted Maïwenn’s team for comment.
Media part has not published Maïwenn’s investigative reports or revelations, but the site has reported extensively on allegations of sexual assault against her ex-husband, French director Luc Besson. The two were married between 1992 and 1997 and have a daughter, Shanna Besson. Media part was the first French medium to publish allegations of Dutch actress Sand Van Roy accusing Besson of rape. The case, launched in the wake of the #MeToo movement, was later dropped.
Maïwenn, who has publicly said she doesn’t embrace the #MeToo movement, cast Depp to play France’s King Louis XV in Joan of Barry when he was in the middle of his legal battle against ex-wife Amber Heard. Maïwenn stars in the film as Louis XV’s lover Jeanne du Barry, a poor commoner who became the Sun King’s last official mistress.
