Gérard Depardieu

Early life

Gérard Xavier Marcel Depardieu was born on 27 December 1948 in Châteauroux, Indre, France, to a working-class, low-income family. He is the third of six children of Anne Jeanne Josèphe (née Marillier), a stay-at-home mother known as "La Lilette", and René Maxime Lionel Depardieu (better known in his neighborhood as "Dédé" because he could write only two letters), a metal worker and volunteer fireman. Not wishing to have another child at the time, Depardieu's mother tried unsuccessfully to abort him.

Depardieu grew up in poverty in a two-room apartment at 39 rue du Maréchal-Joffre, Châteauroux, with his five siblings. His mother was not very affectionate, and sometimes violent to her children. His father, who struggled with a severe alcohol addiction, was often absent from home. Depardieu helped his mother when she was in labor with his younger brothers and sisters. His family eventually nicknamed him "Pétard" or "Pétarou", because of the habit he had acquired of breaking wind incessantly. Depardieu's parents were both born in 1923; Anne died of a heart attack in 1988; René, who suffered from cirrhosis, died two months after her.

Depardieu spent more time on the streets than in school, leaving at the age of 13. Practically illiterate and struggling with a stutter, he learned to read only later. In his 2014 autobiography, Ça s'est fait comme ça, Depardieu revealed that he had prostituted himself as a child, starting when he was 10 years old and could already pass as 15. He would sometimes rob his clients. He was later employed at a printworks, and took part in boxing matches in his spare time. He also supported himself by working as a beach attendant during summers.

During his difficult adolescence, Depardieu turned to theft and smuggling, selling goods like cigarettes and alcohol to the G.I.s at the large American air base of Châteauroux-Déols. He also acted as a bodyguard for two prostitutes who traveled down from Paris on the G.I.s' payday. Depardieu later credited those two women with teaching him about sex. In a 2005 interview, he stated that he was arrested multiple times and put on probation at one point, but never went to prison. He contradicted this in his 2014 autobiography, revealing that he had served three months for car theft at age 16. In 1968, Depardieu's childhood best friend and fellow Châteauroux hoodlum, Jacky Merveille, died in a car accident. This prompted Depardieu—who had relocated to Paris by that time—to reconsider his future and make something of his life.

Career

Early roles and breakthrough

As a teenager, Depardieu befriended Michel Pilorgé, a slightly older boy from a more affluent background. In 1965, Pilorgé, whose family owned a flat in Paris and who planned to settle in the capital to become an actor, invited Depardieu, then 16, to come along. Depardieu accepted and left Châteauroux for Paris. Out of curiosity, he began attending the acting class Pilorgé was taking at the Théâtre National Populaire. One day the teacher, Lucien Arnaud, noticed Depardieu and asked him to perform. The experience helped trigger Depardieu's vocation.

Depardieu next took acting classes with Jean-Laurent Cochet while making a living as a door-to-door salesman. To compensate for his lack of formal education, he studied the classics intensely. At Cochet's request, he underwent therapy with Alfred A. Tomatis to correct his disastrous diction. Depardieu later said that working on theatre texts had taught him to "read and speak".

Depardieu became the boyfriend, and later husband, of actress Élisabeth Guignot, whom he had met at Cochet's class. She introduced him to the Parisian bourgeoisie and entertainment circles, including directors Jacques Demy and Agnès Varda, whose child he occasionally babysat for spare change. In 1966, Guignot also brought him on the first film project he worked on, Christmas Carole, directed by Varda, where he was cast as a beatnik. The film was never completed due to a lack of funding and distribution deal. In 1967, Depardieu made his first actual screen appearance in the short film Le Beatnik et le minet, directed by Roger Leenhardt; his diction was still so bad at the time that his voice had to be dubbed by another actor.

Depardieu's stage work also included performing in café-théâtres. This led him to appear regularly at the Café de la Gare, where he met future onscreen co-stars Patrick Dewaere, Coluche, and Miou-Miou. He quickly earned a reputation for his "instinctive" approach to acting. The first feature film he worked on was Michel Audiard's crime spoof Le Cri du cormoran le soir au-dessus des jonques, released in 1971. That same year, Jean-Louis Livi became his agent and "mentor", introducing him to Artmedia, France's leading talent agency. Around 1972, theatre director Claude Régy became enthusiastic about Depardieu, whom he found "extraordinary" and gifted in an "abnormal" way: he cast him in several plays, including Peter Handke's The Ride across Lake Constance, a production Depardieu later credited with jump-starting his career. Depardieu’s supporting role in the crime film Le Tueur (1972) impressed its veteran star, Jean Gabin, who imposed him on the directors of two subsequent films. For his stage work, Depardieu received the Gérard Philipe Prize in 1973, awarded by the City of Paris to distinguish promising theatre performers.

Rise to stardom

Depardieu followed his 1974 breakthrough by appearing during the same year in Claude Sautet's Vincent, François, Paul and the Others, alongside an ensemble cast of established actors. Also a box-office hit, the film became a classic of French cinema.

From the outset, Depardieu distinguished himself as an unusually prolific and versatile actor, starring in several films a year and alternating between mainstream productions and more demanding avant-garde films. His other prominent films during the 1970s included the psychological thriller 7 morts sur ordonnance (1975) which earned him his first nomination to the César Award for Best Actor. In 1976, he starred in Barbet Schroeder's controversial erotic drama Maîtresse, and in André Téchiné's romantic thriller Barocco where he co-starred with Isabelle Adjani. Also in 1976, Depardieu played a lead role alongside Robert De Niro in Bernardo Bertolucci's two-part Italian historical epic 1900, featuring an international ensemble cast that included Donald Sutherland, Stefania Sandrelli, Dominique Sanda, and Burt Lancaster. Although the film's five-hour length and Marxist-influenced content caused controversy upon release, it was later regarded as a classic.

While Claude Miller's thriller This Sweet Sickness (1977), where Depardieu starred as a deranged antihero, was a box-office failure, it nonetheless earned the actor another César Award nomination. During this period, Depardieu also appeared in several arthouse or experimental projects, including two films by Marco Ferreri, The Last Woman (1976) and Bye Bye Monkey (1978), and two by Marguerite Duras, The Lorry (1977) and Baxter, Vera Baxter (1978).

Depardieu reunited with Bertrand Blier and Patrick Dewaere on the quirky sex comedy Get Out Your Handkerchiefs (1978), which won the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film. The following year, he collaborated with Blier again on the surreal dark comedy Buffet froid (Cold Cuts, 1979), which later became a cult film in France.

Peak of success

In 1980, Depardieu achieved widespread acclaim and commercial success across several prominent films. He starred in Alain Resnais's internationally successful My American Uncle and partnered with Isabelle Huppert in Maurice Pialat's Loulou, a drama that initiated a long-running four-film collaboration with the director. He also starred alongside Catherine Deneuve in François Truffaut's The Last Metro, a romantic drama set in Nazi-occupied Paris. The film was a major box-office success and earned Depardieu his first César Award for Best Actor. Depardieu closed out 1980 by co-starring with Coluche in the box-office hit Inspector Blunder, a crime comedy in which he played the antagonist, and reuniting with Deneuve in Claude Berri's romance film Je vous aime. He subsequently formed a long professional partnership with Berri—who had also produced Inspector Blunder—and co-starred with Deneuve in six more films.

That same year, Depardieu also tried his hand at singing and released several records—including a rock song he performed in Je vous aime—and an LP featuring lyrics written by his wife. Later in his career, he occasionally participated in musical projects. Nevertheless, he remained modest about his abilities as a singer, stating in 2017, "I don't know if I'm singing in tune. Plus, I don't give a fuck."

Throughout the early 1980s, Depardieu sustained a prolific run of critical and commercial hits, including his second and last film with François Truffaut, the romantic drama The Woman Next Door (1981) opposite Fanny Ardant. Other notable films included the period drama The Return of Martin Guerre (1982) alongside Nathalie Baye, and Andrzej Wajda's historical drama Danton (1983). During this era, he also starred in a pair of successful features directed by Alain Corneau, the crime film Choice of Arms (1981), where he played a violent gangster opposite Yves Montand and Catherine Deneuve, and the war drama Fort Saganne (1984), which reunited him once more with Deneuve and co-starred Sophie Marceau. One major disappointment during that period was Jean-Jacques Beineix's The Moon in the Gutter (1983); the film failed to meet box-office expectations and was later openly disparaged by the actor.

Also in 1984, Depardieu made his directorial debut with Le tartuffe, an adaptation of Molière's classic play in which he starred as the title character; Depardieu conceived it as a filmed version of the play, which he was performing at the time at the National Theatre of Strasbourg. The reception was disappointing for both the play and the film. Depardieu rarely returned to directing thereafter. He next reunited with Sophie Marceau in the crime drama Police (1985), his second film with Maurice Pialat. For his performance in that film, he was awarded the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival.

Later work

By the mid-2000s, though Depardieu remained prolific, many of the films he starred in were less successful internationally than before. He readily admitted that some were of poor quality. In 2004, the big-budget action comedy San-Antonio was a major box-office failure in France. Originally cast as the protagonist, Depardieu contributed to the production's troubles by being unable to lose weight for his role as planned, which caused him to be recast as the hero's overweight sidekick.

Despite these setbacks, Depardieu enjoyed several commercial and critical successes during this period. Notable roles included the crime film The 36 (2004), where he played a villainous character opposite Daniel Auteuil, and the romantic drama When I Was a Singer (2006) alongside Cécile de France, a performance that won him the Lumière Award for Best Actor. He also starred in Claude Chabrol's last film, the murder mystery Bellamy (2009), and took on supporting parts in La Vie en Rose (2007) and Mesrine (2008). His rare English-language appearances at the time included a supporting role as a French chef alongside Queen Latifah in Last Holiday (2006) and his turn as a brutish antagonist in Ang Lee's Life of Pi (2012).

In 2010, Depardieu played starring roles in two successful films, the comedy Potiche alongside Catherine Deneuve, and the comedy drama My Afternoons with Margueritte. That same year, he portrayed the title author in the biographical film Dumas and starred in the surprise success Mammuth, a quirky, low-budget dramedy for which he had agreed to work at the union minimum wage in exchange for a percentage of the revenue.

Throughout the early 2010s, Depardieu's popularity in France suffered from the controversies following his tax exile first in Belgium then in Russia, and his public praise of Vladimir Putin. Several of his films performed disastrously at the French box office, including the period drama The Man Who Laughs (2012) which was released in the midst of the controversy.

Depardieu was next featured in several projects aimed at international markets, some of which were poorly received. In 2014, he starred in a thinly disguised portrayal of disgraced former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn in Abel Ferrara's controversial Welcome to New York; due to its subject matter, that film faced an industry boycott in France, which it bypassed by being released exclusively on VOD. Later that year, Depardieu appeared in United Passions, a promotional film about the history of FIFA that bombed at the box office and was lambasted by critics. He co-directed and starred in La Voix des steppes, a French-Kazakh project that remains unreleased as of 2026. Also in 2014, the crime film Viktor, an English-language Russian production, flopped in its limited U.S. release, failed to secure a release in France and was ridiculed by several French media. That same year, Depardieu filmed scenes for the Italian-produced science fiction film Creators: The Past which sat unreleased until 2020 and later generated controversy due to its conspiracist content.

Artistry and public persona

Since his acting breakthrough, Depardieu has been noted for combining a brute physical presence with an ability to express a delicate emotional sensibility. This friction allowed him to navigate between different film genres and to play a wide variety of roles, including romantic lead and threatening antagonist. A 2021 article defined his acting style as "raw, tactile, and physically commanding" and "characterized by an outsized screen presence and deep emotional intensity". A 2013 piece in The Guardian commented that Depardieu "can certainly do humble, gentle giant, amoral, uncouth, even thuggish, but critics have always credited him with an underlying sensitivity and intelligence." His vast cinematic output, collaborations with major directors, number of awards, and box-office appeal allowed him to be recognized as a key figure — even a "monument" — of French cinema and contemporary culture.

Depardieu's physicality was always a core element of his star image. His hulking figure and his rugged, unconventional looks combined with his genuine proletarian background to give him the aura of what the Los Angeles Times called a French "working-class hero". This appeal persisted even after Depardieu's considerable weight gain in later years: critics occasionally mentioned the actor's massive girth as a source of additional curiosity, and as an extension of his screen presence. A 2015 article in Screen analyzed the film Mammuth (2010) as built in part on the scrutiny of, and fascination with its star's "dramatically altered" and "bloated" body.

Despite widespread acclaim for his acting talent, Depardieu became in later years increasingly reluctant —or unable— to memorize his dialogue. He long used cue cards to address this; in 2004, while he was performing the play The Beast in the Jungle in Paris, it was reported that he was relying on an earpiece to deliver his lines. At the time, this was attributed to Depardieu's work overload, or to physical pain following a traffic accident. It sparked controversy in France, leading author Pierre Assouline to write in Le Monde that Depardieu was now less an actor than a businessman. From the 2010s, Depardieu openly used an earpiece on film sets. Director Bertrand Blier, a longtime collaborator of Depardieu, speculated that this was due to laziness on the part of the actor, but clarified that Depardieu otherwise remained professional and closely involved in preparing his scenes. Depardieu argued that it allowed his acting to remain spontaneous. In 2015, while promoting the film Valley of Love, he acknowledged having used an earpiece during the entire production, stating: "I don't want to memorize dialogues; it distorts the thought".

Personal life

Relationships and children

In the late 1960s, Depardieu began a relationship with actress Élisabeth Guignot, later known professionally as Élisabeth Depardieu. They married in 1970 and had two children: Guillaume (1971–2008) and Julie (b. 1973), both of whom also became actors. The couple also appeared onscreen together several times, most notably in Jean de Florette where they played husband and wife. Although they separated in the early 1990s, their divorce was not finalized until 2006, following a lengthy court dispute.

As his marriage deteriorated, Depardieu met model Karine Silla (sister of producer Virginie Besson-Silla) and began a relationship with her. In 1992, while Depardieu was separated from Guignot, he and Silla had a daughter, Roxane. Silla remained Depardieu's partner until 1996. Also in 1996, Depardieu and his wife permanently separated following attempts at reconciliation.

From 1996 to 2005, Depardieu was in a relationship with actress Carole Bouquet. The pair were longtime friends before becoming a couple, having met on the set of the 1979 film Buffet froid and worked together on other projects, including Too Beautiful for You.

On 14 July 2006, he had a son, Jean, with Hélène Bizot (daughter of François Bizot, not to be confused with the actress of the same name). In May 2025, Bizot stated in an interview with gossip magazine Voici that Depardieu was planning to sell the apartment she occupied with their son, and that he intended to cut off her alimony even though she had no income.

For over a decade, Depardieu was in a relationship with wine marketing executive Clémentine Igou, whom he met in 2004. Since 2017, he has been in a relationship with Czech film production manager Magda Vavrusova.

On 13 October 2008, Depardieu's son Guillaume died from pneumonia at the age of 37. Guillaume's health had been adversely affected by drug addiction, and by a 1995 motorcycle crash that eventually required the amputation of his right leg in 2003. Depardieu and Guillaume had a turbulent relationship, including a public falling out in 2003, but had reconciled prior to Guillaume's death. In 2002, they starred together in A Loving Father, a film that depicted a dysfunctional father-and-son relationship. In his 2014 autobiography, Depardieu acknowledged his shortcomings as a father, saying that he had been unable to provide an answer to Guillaume's suffering. Later, he blamed his son's death on the prison sentence Guillaume had received at the age of 17 for drug offenses: he said that Guillaume had never recovered from the experience and had been unfairly treated by the court due to being his son. Depardieu commented that his son had been "killed" for two grams of heroin.

Health

According to Depardieu's account, a doctor complimented him in his youth on his exceptional physical constitution, telling him he could expect to live to be 120. By his own admission, however, the actor combined this with an unhealthy lifestyle.

Depardieu was always noted for his excessive drinking. According to his friend Marc Esposito, around the early 1980s he also developed a habit of snorting heroin, which he eventually overcame. A 2024 biography reported that Depardieu's already heavy drinking worsened after his son Guillaume died in 2008. In 2014, Depardieu stated that he drank up to 14 bottles of alcohol daily; he would start at 10:00 a.m. with champagne, wine, and pastis, and end the day with vodka, whisky, or both. He remarked: "I'm never totally drunk, just a bit of a pain in the ass"

This severe alcohol consumption resulted in numerous road incidents over the decades. In 1998, Depardieu had a motorcycle accident with a high blood alcohol content of 2.5 g/L on the way to the shooting of Asterix and Obelix vs. Caesar. He was prescribed forty days off work. In 2012, Depardieu was hit by a car while riding his scooter in Paris. The same year, while intoxicated with 1.8 g/L of alcohol in his blood, he had another scooter accident, without injury and without collision with another party. In 2013, it was reported that he had been involved in at least seven motorcycle or scooter accidents since the 2000s.

In addition to his alcohol misuse, Depardieu has become known for eating in large quantities—something he readily admits. In 2015, Laurent Audiot, chef of the Parisian restaurant La Fontaine Gaillon, compared Depardieu to the gluttonous giant Gargantua, saying that "he has excessive energy and he compensates with food, but sometimes it takes on incredible proportions".

Depardieu's drinking and eating habits eventually caused noticeable weight gain from the 1990s onward. He managed several times to lose the weight through strict diets, only to regain it later. In 2000, he underwent heart bypass surgery after two weeks of chest pains. Throughout the 2000s Depardieu became permanently, then severely overweight. In 2008, he was reported to have reached 150 kilograms (330 lb). In a 2014 film review, The Hollywood Reporter called Depardieu "morbidly obese".

In the context of Depardieu's 2025 trial, it was mentioned by his legal team that he suffered from heart ailments and diabetes.

Tax exile and citizenship

In 2012, after French President François Hollande introduced a plan to tax high incomes at 75%, Depardieu registered as a resident of Néchin, Belgium in a tax avoidance move. French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault criticised Depardieu's move as "shabby" and unpatriotic. On 15 December, Depardieu responded by calling Ayrault's remarks insulting, and by stating that in the eyes of the French government, "success, creation, talent, anything different, must be punished", and that he planned to hand back his French passport.

On 20 December, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered Depardieu citizenship, which the actor accepted. On 3 January 2013,the Kremlin leader signed an Executive Order officially granting it. Two days later, Depardieu met with Putin at the latter's residence in Sochi, to receive his Russian passport. The resulting controversy harmed Depardieu's public image in France.

Also in January 2013, Depardieu was appointed a cultural ambassador for Montenegro, a country where he had similarly considered becoming a tax resident, or obtaining a passport. This caused some backlash in Montenegro, where several intellectuals penned an op-ed arguing that Depardieu had no connection to the country and that his appointment was a mere public relations stunt on the part of the Montenegrin government.

Depardieu registered as a resident of Saransk, Russia. There, he received a preferential tax treatment, becoming subject to a 6% tax rate, half as high as the majority of other Russian tax residents. In 2018, he stated that he wished to become a citizen of Turkey.

In 2022, Depardieu revealed in an interview that he had become a citizen of the United Arab Emirates, although he did not specify when this occurred. In the same interview, he said that he had retained his French passport, even though he wished to live "less and less" in France. Depardieu's friend Guy Roux said that the actor's resentment of France stemmed from the 2008 death of his son Guillaume, which he blamed on the French judiciary.

While residing in Russia for part of the year, Depardieu remained registered as a resident of Néchin. In 2025, it was reported that the French National Financial Prosecutor's office had opened an investigation into aggravated tax evasion and money laundering pertaining to Depardieu's tax residence in Belgium. Magistrates aimed to establish whether Depardieu really had been living in Néchin, or if he had instead been staying in France for a period longer than that allowed by his status as a tax resident abroad.

Political views

In 1987, Depardieu published an op-ed in the left-wing newspaper Libération in support of socialist French President François Mitterrand, announcing that he would be "voting for the first time" on the occasion of Mitterrand's 1988 reelection bid. He later said that he had abstained that year. In 1993, he expressed support for the French Communist Party. Later on, he supported conservative President Jacques Chirac. Following the 2002 presidential election, he again supported the Communist Party, then on the verge of bankruptcy after its electoral failure, by donating €10,000. In 2010, he said that right-wing President Nicolas Sarkozy was the only politician he appreciated. In 2012, during Sarkozy's unsuccessful bid for reelection, Depardieu publicly endorsed him and spoke at one of his rallies. He later said that he had been "drunk" that day.

Since the 1990s, Depardieu has publicly associated himself with authoritarian leaders, based on his economic interests.During that decade, while investing into an oil exploration project in Cuba, he met then-President Fidel Castro and expressed his sympathy for him. In 1998, he supported Slovak Prime Minister Vladimír Mečiar's bid for reelection. It was later revealed that Depardieu had been paid €45,000 for his endorsement of Mečiar, which he acknowledged in 2004. Depardieu eventually said he had realised afterwards that Mečiar was "a real fascist". Depardieu also expressed support for Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika after investing into vineyards in Algeria. His associations with political strongmen were long tolerated by the French general public.

One day after being granted Russian citizenship by Vladimir Putin, Depardieu penned an open letter to the Russian President, praising him and calling Russia "a great democracy". His support for Putin was widely condemned in France by a broad spectrum of political actors, and the open letter drew ridicule from the Russian opposition. Depardieu granted his first extensive interview after becoming a Russian national to the state-owned news channel Russia-24, where he dismissed Putin's opponents, stating, "The Russian opposition has no programme; it has nothing". In his autobiography, he commented that Putin "immediately liked [his] hooligan side." Depardieu subsequently made public appearances with Putin's allies, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, expressing his support for them. In August 2015, Depardieu's films were banned from television and cinemas in Ukraine after he said "I love Russia and Ukraine, which is part of Russia". Following his acquisition of Russian citizenship, Depardieu also expressed anti-American sentiment: in 2015, while in Moscow where he was performing a play, he called the United States "a people who have constantly destroyed others".

Religion

Though not baptized at birth, Depardieu had a Catholic upbringing. In the 2010s, he revealed that as a young man, he had converted to Islam as part of his interest in spirituality. Depardieu credited an Umm Kulthum concert that he attended in Paris in 1965 with starting his interest in Islam. According to Depardieu, this conversion took place in the late 1960s, though he also said in some interviews that it had occurred during the 1970s. He "was a Muslim for two years" before giving up due to his inability to learn Arabic. He later expressed interests in Buddhism and Hinduism.

In 2003, following an encounter with Pope John Paul II, Depardieu gave public readings of Saint Augustine's Confessions at the Notre-Dame Cathedral. Over the years, he gave several other readings of Saint Augustine's works. In September 2020, Depardieu converted to Eastern Orthodox Christianity at the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Paris.

Business ventures and wealth

In 1983, Depardieu created the company DD Productions to co-produce films and rent filming equipment. Owning shares of the films he starred in allowed him to earn additional income from box office receipts, home video and television broadcasts.

Apart from his film career, Depardieu is also a viticulturist, having invested in vineyards since the late 1980s. He has owned the Château de Tigné (Tigné Castle) in the Loire Valley since 1989, producing wine on the estate. His other wine properties include estates in the Médoc, Hérault, Burgundy, Eastern Europe, the Maghreb, and South America.

In 2003, Depardieu bought La Fontaine Gaillon, a luxury restaurant in the 2nd arrondissement of Paris. Its wine cellar, which consisted of bottles of Château Haut-Brion, Château Latour, Meursault and Saint-Émilion, was recognized by the Gault Millau guide. Over the years, Depardieu's assets in Paris also included another French cuisine restaurant, a Japanese delicatessen, a wine bar, and a seafood shop. By 2012, he employed over a hundred people in France through fifteen companies.

Over time, Depardieu diversified by investing in a variety of ventures, including an unsuccessful oil exploration project in Cuba in the late 1990s. In the same decade, he partnered with Planet Hollywood to supply them with wine. He has also generated substantial income from commercials and advertising campaigns. In the early 1990s, he starred in two Barilla commercials, directed respectively by Ridley Scott and David Lynch. He was later featured in various campaigns aimed exclusively at Eastern European markets. In 2013, Depardieu's wealth was estimated at US$200 million. He said that the 2006 divorce settlement with his wife cost him €15 million.

Depardieu also owned a hôtel particulier built in 1805 in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, which was valued at €50 million ($53.5 million).

In the late 2010s, Depardieu began parting with some of his assets in France, including La Fontaine Gaillon which he sold in 2019. He stated a wish to reduce his financial and legal connections to his country of birth, citing the French government's misuse of taxpayers' money as well as breaches of trust by some of his business partners. In February 2026, he sold his Parisian mansion to a British investment fund for a reported €22.6 million, incurring a significant loss.

Interests and hobbies

Depardieu has a passion for gastronomy, in particular for traditional French cuisine, and is a connoisseur of wine. He is an amateur gourmet cook himself, and published a cookbook in 2005. For about a decade, starting in the 1990s, he organized a yearly event promoting rosé wine at his Château de Tigné. In 2015 and 2016, he starred alongside La Fontaine Gaillon chef Laurent Audiot in the documentary series À pleines dents (roughly translating as With Gusto), broadcast on Arte. The show followed the pair as they traveled to explore French and European culinary traditions.

He is also a collector of fine art and motorcycles. In September 2023, he auctioned 250 art pieces from his extensive collection, including works by Auguste Rodin, Ossip Zadkine, and Alexander Calder, generating a reported €4 million.

Depardieu is a football enthusiast; as a teenager, he played as a goalkeeper for LB Châteauroux's youth team. He was for a time a prominent supporter of AJ Auxerre, particularly during their 1995-96 season that saw them win the Ligue 1 title and the Coupe de France. Over the years he has supported other teams, including Red Star FC and Olympique de Marseille.

Sexual assault and rape allegations

First controversy

In 1977, Harry Stein interviewed Depardieu on the set of Get Out Your Handkerchiefs. The interview, which was published in the March–April 1978 issue of Film Comment under the title Depardieu: French Primitive, addressed the actor's rough upbringing and turbulent youth: it quoted Depardieu as saying that he had first participated in a gang rape when he was nine years old and in more rapes since then, and commenting that there were "too many [rapes] to count... There was nothing wrong with it. The girls wanted to be raped. I mean, there's no such thing as rape. It's only a matter of a girl putting herself in a situation where she wants to be." In November 1980, Depardieu granted an interview to the French magazine Lui where he addressed this story again, describing these acts less as rape than as a form of consensual group sex, involving girls who wished to "be part of the gang".

These remarks re-emerged in February 1991, shortly after the release of Green Card, when Time published an interview of Depardieu where he appeared to confirm these statements and commented: "it was absolutely normal in those circumstances. That was part of my childhood." On 15 March 1991, Depardieu's American publicist Lois Smith stated: "He's sorry, but it happened". The National Organization for Women requested an apology from Depardieu. Later that month, Depardieu's French publicist Claude Devy discounted the statements made by Smith, and Depardieu threatened legal action against any media outlet that published the comments. Depardieu's team said that Time had mistranslated the French verb "assister" as "participate", when a more accurate translation would be "attend" or "be witness to". Time refused to retract the story and claimed that Depardieu had indeed mentioned participating in the rapes.

At that time, Depardieu received support from the French media and political establishment, who claimed he was being mistreated and blamed American "puritanism." As a result, his career in France was not affected, and the French general public eventually forgot the controversy over time.

2018

In 2018, Depardieu was accused of sexual assault and rape by Charlotte Arnould, a 22-year-old actress and dancer. Arnould, whose identity was initially concealed, made her name public in December 2021.

The daughter of a longtime friend of Depardieu, Arnould said that in 2018 she had been invited by the actor to his Parisian home, ostensibly to discuss her career. There, she said, Depardieu had digitally raped her. According to her account, she went back to Depardieu's home to confront him, only to be similarly raped a second time. Arnould made her statement to police in Lambesc, southern France, after which the case was passed to prosecutors in the capital. Depardieu denied the allegations. In 2019, the charges were dropped after a nine-month police investigation. Actress Emmanuelle Debever commented on the news by accusing Depardieu of groping her on the set of the 1983 film Danton. The case was reopened in October 2020 after Arnould refiled the complaint.

Following Arnould's second complaint, French authorities charged Depardieu with rape in 2020. The actor rejected the allegation through his lawyer. In 2022, the Paris Court of Appeal rejected Depardieu's attempt to have the charges dropped and announced that the actor would remain under formal investigation. In 2024, the Paris Public Prosecutor requested that Depardieu go to trial. In 2025, judges ordered him to stand trial on charges of rape and sexual assault, though no date was set.

2023–2024

In April 2023, investigative website Mediapart reported that 13 women were accusing Depardieu of sexual assault and sexual harassment pertaining to incidents that occurred on film and television sets between 2004 and 2022. Several of these women said that Depardieu's behavior had happened in full view, without anyone objecting. Charlotte Arnould gave a television interview where she recounted her version in detail. After several of his public performances were disrupted by feminist protesters and hecklers throughout the year, Depardieu published an open letter in October disputing the accusations.

Depardieu's reputation was further damaged on 7 December, 2023, when French television newsmagazine Complément d'enquête broadcast a segment about the accusations against the actor; titled Gérard Depardieu: The Fall of the Ogre, it included behind-the-scenes footage from a documentary project Depardieu had worked on with author-director Yann Moix. In these candid clips, shot in 2018 in North Korea, Depardieu could be seen making multiple obscene, sexist and misogynistic comments. Some of his remarks appeared to be directed at a child, though Depardieu disputed this in court.

Emmanuelle Debever died on the eve of the Complément d'enquête broadcast, after one week in a hospital following a suicide attempt, leading to speculation that her death was connected to the program. Six days after the segment was aired, Quebec premier François Legault announced that Gérard Depardieu would be stripped of the National Order of Quebec, on the grounds of the actor's "scandalous remarks". Depardieu became the first person in the history of the order to have his membership revoked. The segment also caused Radio Télévision Suisse, the French-language public broadcaster of Switzerland, to announce that for the time being it would no longer broadcast films starring Depardieu.

French politicians also reacted to the Complément d'enquête documentary. Culture Minister Rima Abdul Malak expressed outrage at Depardieu's behaviour, saying that he brought "shame" to France, and launched a disciplinary procedure that could lead to the actor's Legion of Honour being rescinded. In contrast, when asked for comment on 21 December, President Emmanuel Macron denounced the "manhunt" against Depardieu and said that the actor made France "proud". Macron later clarified that he was not "complacent" about sexual abuse and had defended Depardieu's presumption of innocence. Depardieu later sued France Télévisions over the report, though he withdrew his complaint in April 2026 after settling the matter with the broadcaster.

2025

Depardieu's trial on two counts of sexual assault said to have occurred during the shooting of The Green Shutters was scheduled to begin in October 2024. On that day, Depardieu's lawyer said that health concerns meant he was unable to attend court. The trial was rescheduled, and began in March 2025.

Depardieu spoke in his own defense, taking the stand for three days. While he denied all allegations of sexual misconduct, he appeared at times confused and unfocused. Several women testified that they had been groped by Depardieu on film sets, or had seen him grope others. Fanny Ardant, his close friend and co-star in several films including The Green Shutters, testified to his good character. Conversely, Anouk Grinberg, who also co-starred with Depardieu in the film, attended the proceedings in support of the two plaintiffs.

In May 2025, Depardieu was convicted on both counts of sexual assault and handed an 18-month suspended sentence. In its ruling, the court noted that Depardieu did not appear to have "grasped the notion of consent". He appealed against his conviction. The appeal trial is scheduled to take place from November 16 to 20, 2026.

Awards and honors

Depardieu has been nominated for the César for Best Actor in a Leading Role 17 times during his career and won it twice, in 1981 and 1991. He was also nominated for an Oscar in 1990 for his role in Cyrano de Bergerac.

Besides his acting accolades, he has been awarded the following order of merits and honors:

1985: Chevalier (Knight) of the Ordre national du Mérite

1996: Chevalier (Knight) of the Légion d'honneur

2013: Cultural ambassador of Montenegro

2019: Tourism ambassador in France for Uzbekistan

Formerly:

Honorary Knight of the National Order of Quebec, Canada, awarded in 2002, rescinded in 2023

Honorary citizen of Estaimpuis, Belgium: awarded in 2013, rescinded in 2023

Gold Medal of the City of Brussels, Belgium: awarded in 2018, rescinded in 2023

Discography

1980 : OK Cafard (Je suis noir), lyrics by Élisabeth Depardieu (single)

1980 : Ils ont dit moteur... Coupez !, lyrics by Élisabeth Depardieu and Jean-Claude Mejstelman (LP)

1980 : Comédien Comédien, lyrics by Élisabeth Depardieu (single)

1980 : La P'tite Agathe, lyrics by Serge Gainsbourg (single, soundtrack from the film Je vous aime)

1986 : Lily passion, by and with Barbara (show recording)

1992 : I'll Strangle You, with Anneli Drecker, music by Hector Zazou (spoken words)

1997 : Un piccolo aiuto, with Zucchero

1997 : L'Histoire du soldat, by Igor Stravinsky (spoken words)

2006 : Quand j'étais chanteur (soundtrack for the film When I Was a Singer)

2009 : Rendez vous in Paris, with Jasmine Roy

2010 : Oedipus rex, by Igor Stravinsky (spoken words)

2017 : Depardieu chante Barbara, lyrics by Barbara (show recording)

2019 : Blond, with Philippe Katerine

Books

Lettres volées, Lattès, 1988, ISBN 978-2709607438

Vivant !, with Laurent Neumann, Plon, 2004, ISBN 978-2290347430

Lire Saint Augustin, with André Mandouze, Desclée De Brouwer, 2004, ISBN 978-2220055039

Ma cuisine, France Loisirs, 2005, ISBN 978-2-263-03868-6

Depardieu grandeur nature, with Richard Mellou, Flammarion, 2009, ISBN 978-2081228245

Ça s'est fait comme ça, with Lionel Duroy, XO, 2014, ISBN 978-2845637320

Innocent, Le Cherche Midi, 2015, ISBN 978-2-7491-4889-2

Monstre, Le Cherche Midi, 2017, ISBN 978-2749153148

Ailleurs, Le Cherche Midi, 2020, ISBN 978-2290252239