Anouk Grinberg breaks the silence: Respect, a cry of truth against sexual violence

At the age of 62, French actress Anouk Grinberg, a committed figure in the #MeToo movement, has published Respect (Julliard), a book as moving as it is necessary. For the first time, she recounts the sexual and domestic violence she has suffered throughout her life. A story of rare intensity, in which she blends intimate memory with political denunciation.

A childhood marked by violence (in the columns of Libération)

“When you’re raped as a child, you lose yourself. It’s like being swallowed by a stone.” These words, spoken in La Grande Librairie on France 5, sum up the shock and silence that followed the first attack, at the age of 7. The rapist was a friend’s stepfather. Anouk Grinberg spoke to her father, hoping for protection. But he “didn’t understand”, she says. Worse, he took her back to the rapist. “And I never said anything again.”

But there was other violence: incest, at the age of 12, of which she accuses her brother – “not a mean boy”, she says, but the aggression remains. “When incest is committed by someone you trust completely, sex is forever linked to betrayal.”

Under Bertrand Blier’s spell

In her book, she also talks about her relationship with filmmaker Bertrand Blier, 23 years her senior, with whom she lived for ten years and had a son. She made three films under his direction (Merci la vie, Un, deux, trois, soleil, Mon homme), but today describes the relationship as marked by a destructive hold. “I was the object of his delusions, without realizing it. She “freed herself” with Mediapart.

She accuses Blier of having manipulated, humiliated and violated her. “He dragged me by force to a psychiatrist, had me prescribed neuroleptics to bend to his will.” Their last collaboration, Mon homme, is said to have been a turning point: “He tortured me.” In the book, she recalls a daily life under his control, made up of marital rapes, threats and imposed silences. “He told me I was crazy like my mother, that he was going to take custody of my son away from me.”

The indelible traces of violence

The aim of these revelations is not just to accuse, but to understand. “When you’ve been crushed by one man, then another, you lose the reflex to defend yourself. You get used to being nothing.” A form of inner death, she says, that many women experience.

“Even 50 years later, if the man I love touches me, I still have the sensation of having a child’s body.” The body, memory, silence: all invisible scars that Respect tries to make audible.

Illness as a trigger

The trigger came from an intimate ordeal: “Cancer. I realized that I was sick of the cruelty of others. I couldn’t heal without telling the truth about my life.” Today, she courageously speaks out.

A public commitment

Anouk Grinberg, who supported actress Charlotte Arnould in her complaint against Gérard Depardieu, also made her mark during the actor’s trial. Interrupting the hearing with a cry of disgust at the violence of the defense, she recounts the moment in her book: “I couldn’t stand hearing that vomit. These men who humiliate, who belittle, who don’t want to believe women.”

Today, she speaks. For herself. For others. For shame to change sides.