British Actress Accuses Polanski of Teenage Rape

AFP/APP
Paris: On Tuesday, Charlotte Lewis, a British actress, made allegations against filmmaker Roman Polanski, accusing him of raping her when she was a teenager.
She stated that after she spoke up about the incident, she became the target of a “smear campaign.”
Speaking in a criminal court in Paris, the 56-year-old expressed that the ordeal had severely impacted her life.
Polanski, who was not present during the hearing, faces defamation charges related to Lewis’s accusations.
Lewis recounted the incident, stating that she was 16 years old when the rape occurred in Paris during the 1980s.
She admitted that at the time, she was not fully aware that what happened constituted rape, but she felt that something was wrong.
Roman Polanski, aged 90, is sought by the United States authorities over the rape of a 13-year-old in 1977, and he faces multiple other allegations of sexual assault spanning decades.
He has consistently denied these accusations and fled to Europe in 1978.
Notable films directed by Polanski include “Rosemary’s Baby,” “Chinatown,” and “The Pianist.”
Charlotte Lewis accused Polanski of abusing her in Paris in 1983 when she was 16 years old, after she traveled there for a casting session.
She appeared in Polanski’s 1986 film “Pirates.”
Polanski countered Lewis’s allegations, calling them a “heinous lie” during a conversation with Paris Match magazine in 2019.
He referred to a 1999 article in the now-defunct British tabloid newspaper News of the World where Lewis was quoted as saying, “I wanted to be his lover.”
Lewis has disputed the accuracy of these quotes attributed to her in the interview. Consequently, she filed a defamation complaint, leading to Polanski being charged under French law.