French actor-director Maiwenn, whose latest film “Jeanne du Barry” starring Johnny Depp is set to open the Cannes Film Festival, is being sued by Edwy Plenel, the editor-in-chief of Mediapart magazine for allegedly attacking him at a restaurant.
A police complaint was filed on March 7 by Plenel, accusing Maiween of aggression. Variety confirmed the filing with the Paris prosecutor’s office following local news reports. In the complaint, Plenel alleges that he was assaulted by Maiwenn in late February while eating at a restaurant in the posh seventh arrondissement of Paris.
Maiwenn, who was sitting by herself at a nearby table, allegedly came to his table and grabbed him by the hair before spitting in his face without saying a word, then stormed out of the venue, leaving Plenel “traumatized by the incident,” according to the news outlet AFP, which quoted the police complaint.
Variety has reached out to Maiwenn’s attorney for comment.
While the police report was filed a month ago, it leaked Friday, only a day after the Cannes Film Festival announced that Maiwenn’s movie had been chosen to open its 76th edition.
Though Mediapart hasn’t ever investigated Maiwenn, it published a series of bombshell stories about her ex-husband Luc Besson, with whom she shares a daughter, Shanna Besson. Mediapart has been spearheading the #MeToo movement in France, publishing the first testimony of Belgian-Dutch actor Sand Van Roy accusing Besson of sexual assault (the case was eventually dropped), and the testimony of French actor Adele Haenel accusing the director Christophe Ruggia of sexual harassment when she was a minor.
Maiwenn, who has said in previous interviews that she didn’t embrace the #MeToo movement, cast Depp to play French king Louis XV in “Jeanne du Barry” when he was in the middle of his legal battle against his ex-wife Amber Heard. Maiwenn stars in the leading role as Jeanne du Barry, Louis XV’s greatest love whom he brought into the Versailles palace to live near him even though she wasn’t a noble.
