JOAN MANSON. American singer Jeane Manson, accused by her ex-stepdaughter, Coline Berry-Rojtman, daughter of Richard Berry, of “complicity in incestuous acts”, won her trial for defamation.
[Mis à jour le 14 avril 2022 à 15h01] A turning point in the Berry case. Coline Berry suffered a first legal setback against Jeane Manson, whom she accused of “complicity in incestuous acts”. The latter, after the revelation of the case, had filed a complaint against her former daughter-in-law for defamation. According to Vincent Vantighmen, journalist at BFMTV, “Coline Berry was sentenced to a fine of 2,000 euros for defamation by the court of Aurillac, this Thursday” April 14.
“The daughter of Richard Berry was also ordered to pay 20,000 euros to Jeane Manson, the ex-girlfriend of Coline Berry, who had filed a complaint for defamation”, adds the journalist. This stormy trial opened on Friday April 1, at the court of Aurillac, in Cantal, even though the Berry case, the investigation of which has been entrusted to the Brigade for the Protection of Minors, is still in progress.
[Info @BFMTV] #berry : Coline Berry was sentenced to a fine of 2,000 euros for defamation by the court of Aurillac, this Thursday afternoon.
— Vincent Vantighem (@vvantighem) April 14, 2022
A trial for defamation which had turned, in the court of Aurillac, into a family unpacking. At the helm, actor Richard Berry, accused by his daughter of “rape and sexual assault on a 15-year-old minor by ascendant and corruption of a minor”, continued to deny. “It’s all fake. Unfortunately, it’s lies and I think she ended up believing it. It’s heartbreaking for a father. I have no attraction for children. I am deeply, frankly, desperate. I did not want to express myself until the investigation was over, but I came today to support Jeane”, explained the actor in front of the judges, reported AFP, before his current companion, Pascale Louange , does not get up and slap Coline Berry, according to several concordant testimonies.
If Coline Berry reiterated her accusations, Jeane Manson also claimed her innocence. For its part, the defense of the daughter of Richard Berry wondered how justice could rule on the complaint for defamation of the American singer, while the investigation into the Berry case is still ongoing. “I do not see how this defamation lawsuit can be held as long as my client’s complaint has not been fully dealt with by the courts. I will ask for a stay of proceedings”, explained Karine Shebabo, Coline’s lawyer. Berry, at BFMTV.
Tuesday February 2, 2021, Le Point revealed the Berry affair: Coline Hiegel Berry, 45, filed a complaint with the Paris public prosecutor on January 21, 2021. She accuses her father, Richard Berry of “rape and sexual assault on a 15-year-old minor by ascendant and corruption of a minor”, and Jeane Manson, her former mother-in-law, of complicity in incestuous acts while she was still a minor. Coline Berry describes facts that would have happened when she was a child, between the ages of 6 and 10. Richard Berry and Jeane Manson were married during the same period, between 1984 and 1986. The Brigade for the Protection of Minors (BPM) had been seized, according to Le Point and franceinfo, even if the facts would now be prescribed.
In a message posted in Instagram story on February 3, 2021, Coline Berry wrote: “My father’s lies will not withstand careful examination of all the elements gathered so far”. She explains having been “kissed by her father on the mouth with his tongue” and having “had to participate in his sexual games in a context of notorious domestic violence” with Jeane Manson.
The worldwho had had access to the complaint, reported on February 3, 2021: “When the couple had custody of the children at the weekend, it would have happened to them, the morning after their antics, to invite them to the parental room to sexual games. The complainant’s father would then have offered to play the orchestra with his sexual organs and those of his partner (penis, breasts), the two adults being naked. (…) Mrs. Coline Berry would therefore have been forced to put his mouth on Mr. Berry’s sex, all in the presence of the other child (Jeane Manson’s daughter, editor’s note), and repeatedly.
Faced with these accusations, Jeane Manson denies it altogether. In the columns of Figaro on February 4, 2021, she said to herself “flabbergasted and deeply hurt to be taken to task in a family score settlement” and wanted to “wash her honor”. “I never participated in the so-called sex games she talks about, of course (…). If I had known, or the slightest suspicion, of the tiniest act against nature against Coline, I would have immediately triggered the legal process to denounce the author”, assured the singer to the newspaper.
A defense maintained since. On BFM TVthis Friday, April 1, Jeane Manson still proclaims her innocence: “I never hurt her. She has to admit it. I would like her to tell the truth (…) I would like to tell her : ‘You know very well that I never did that to you, and you know very well that your father neither’. These lies must be stopped.”
In addition to accusations of sexual violence, Coline Berry claims that the American singer is a member of the Children of God sect. This is also what the accused denounces, including this fact in her complaint for defamation. The Children of God, also called The Family or The International Family, is a sectarian group created in 1968 in the United States. At heart many scandals, linked in particular to the discovery of incitement to prostitution, incest or pedophilia, the sect was dissolved in France in 1978, but reformed under other names.
According to Vincent Vantighem, journalist at BFMTV, Jeane Manson had denied being part of this sect, indicating that he had welcomed musicians in 1976 who called themselves “The children of God” and who were indeed part of this movement which has since dissolved, but which continues to have followers.
Born October 1, 1950 in Cleveland, Ohio, United States, Jean Ann Manson, known as Jeane Manson, became known in the 1970s first as a playmate, then as a singer. France discovers it with the tube before saying goodbyesold more than 600,000 copies in 1976. Its success exploded and the American, Frenchified, became one of the faces of French variety in the 1970s, alongside the songwriter Jean Renard.
In 1979, Jeane Manson represented Luxembourg in the Eurovision Song Contest: she finished in thirteenth position with her song I’ve seen it in your eyes before. In 1984, after having released several singles, she took part in the South-West tour, where she met Richard Berry.
Before meeting the French comedian, Jeane Manson had two daughters: Jennifer (known under the pseudonym of singer Shirel), born in 1978 from her relationship with producer André Djaoui, and Marianne, born in 1988, with journalist and producer Allain Baugrain-Dugourg. It was therefore in 1984 that the singer met Richard Berry. A stormy and conflicting relationship, which she told in the columns of Gala in September 2020. “We were two artists, it was the worst configuration. We suffered from a situation of competition. Richard knows very well that I did not have not been happy in our history so I can talk about it. When it worked for me, he was jealous, and when it worked for him, I felt in a weak position. The couple divorced two years after their marriage, in 1986.
Faced with the wave of the case in early 2021, Jeane Manson’s daughter, Shirel Sayegh Djaoui, mentioned by Coline Berry in her complaint, immediately spoke. The singer then assured that none of the facts reported in the complaint were true. “Me, she said I was in the room with them, so I’m the only witness. So I was 6 or 7 years old and I can tell you that nothing like that happened,” she explained. to BFMTV on February 4, 2021. And to add, in a Facebook post published the same day: “I have a mother who is very protective who would never have let that happen, and then I don’t remember. . I know that Coline’s accusations are false from the first word to the last.”