RICHARD BERRY. Richard Berry was accused of rape and sexual assault by his daughter, Coline Berry-Rojtman. The case was dismissed due to prescription.
[Mis à jour le 1er septembre 2022 à 9h24] Full stop in the Richard Berry case. The investigation which targeted the actor, accused of incest by his daughter Coline Berry-Rojtman, was dismissed on Wednesday August 31, 2022. The Paris prosecutor’s office clarified to AFP that the case “was closed without follow-up because of the acquisition of the prescription of the public action”.
Following the closure of the investigation, the lawyers of the two parties embarked on a standoff. That of Coline Berry, Me Patrick Klugman, recalled that his client “denounced these facts knowing full well that they were prescribed, for there to be an investigation. This takes note that the facts are prescribed. We understand so that the facts are characterized, and that’s what we expected. No one will be able to say that Coline Berry is a liar.” Richard Berry’s lawyer, Me Hervé Témime immediately reacted by saying that “there is nothing to say that the facts are established. The prosecution did not say it and moreover did not have to say it.”
Coline Berry-Rojtman, daughter of Richard Berry and Catherine Hiegel, had filed a complaint against her father on January 25, 2021. She accused him of rape, sexual assault and corruption of minors for facts which allegedly occurred in the years 1984-1985, when she was under 15 years old. As part of this case, Coline Berry had also been sentenced for defamation by the Aurillac court on April 14, 2022, in a trial which opposed her to her father’s ex-girlfriend, Jeane Manson. The latter had filed a complaint against her former daughter-in-law but also against Le Monde, claiming that Coline Berry’s accusations against her, reported in a daily article, had affected her career and her health. Coline Berry appealed this decision.
Richard Berry is a French actor and director. Born July 31, 1950 in Paris, he is the son of a merchant couple and the older brother of the sculptor Philippe Berry and a certain Marie. The family lives in Paris and Boulogne-Billancourt. Richard Berry has been passionate about the theater since his adolescence. He began in a troupe of amateur actors who played the classics of Beaumarchais, Corneille, Racine, and Molière. In 1969, it was on the second attempt that he was admitted to the entrance examination for the Conservatory. When he left, he directly joined the Comédie-Française to stay there for almost seven years.
Thanks to Elie Chouraqui, he landed his first major film role in “Mon premier amour” in 1978. A few years later, he began to vary his register with, among other things, the interpretation of the film, “Le Grand Pardon”, d ‘Alexandre Arcady, a director of whom he will be the favorite actor with “The Great Carnival”, “The Sacred Union”, “The Great Pardon II” and “Between Dogs and Wolves”. In 1984, he continued with “La Garce”, which marked the beginning of a collaboration with the filmmaker and actress Christine Pascal and which was followed by the drama “Le Petit prince a dit” (for which he was nominated for the César for best actor ) and “Adultery, instructions for use”. It was during the 1990s that he had his greatest success in the comedies “Un grand cri d’amour” by Josiane Balasko and “Soft pedal”. His talent and his popularity allowed him to play in the last two films of Henri Verneuil entitled “Mayrig” and “588, rue Paradis”.
From the 2000s, he devoted himself to directing with the film “The Art of Seduction”, but also “Me César, 10 1/2 years old, 1.39 m”. He will try his hand at thriller with “The Black Box” in 2005 and “The Immortal” in 2010, adapted from the novel by Franz-Olivier Giesbert. More recently, he directed the films “Our women” and “Everything, immediately”. He does not neglect his work as an actor either, since we can see him appearing in several films, such as the comedies “La Doublure”, “Nos femmes” (which he also directed), or even “Le Coach”.
Richard Berry had several companions. He first dated actress Catherine Hiegel, with whom he had his eldest daughter, Coline Hiegel Berry. The couple separated at the end of the 1970s. In 1984, he married singer Jeane Manson (“Before we say goodbye”), but their relationship would not last as they divorced two years later. A few years later, he married actress Jessica Forde, who gave birth to the actor’s second daughter, Joséphine Berry. However, the couple eventually separated. After a brief relationship of a few months with journalist Laurence Ferrari, Richard Berry dated actress Pascale Louange, whom he married in 2016. Two years before saying “yes”, the couple welcomed a daughter, Mila Berry Louange, in 2014.
Richard Berry is the father of three children. His eldest daughter, Coline Hiegel Berry, was born in 1976 from his relationship with actress Catherine Hiegel. The actor had two other daughters, from two other marriages: with Jessica Forde, he gave birth to actress Joséphine Berry, seen in “Me, Caesar, 10 ½ years old, 1m39” and “Clem”. Richard Berry is currently married to Pascale Louange: the two actors welcomed Mila Berry Louange, the actor’s third daughter, into their family in 2014.
The Berry family is well established in French cinema. However, his parents had no connection with the seventh art, since they were traders. Richard Berry is however the brother of the sculptor Philippe Berry, the ex-husband of Josiane Balasko and father of the actress Marilou Berry. The latter is therefore the niece of Richard Berry. Most of Richard Berry’s companions and mother of his children have also been actresses, as is the case with Catherine Hiegel, Jessica Forde and Pascale Louange. Joséphine Berry, the actor’s second daughter, is also an actress, having acted mainly in her father’s films. She is also known in “Me César, 10 ½ years, 1m39” and “The Immortal”.
On February 2, 2021, Le Point announces that Richard Berry and his ex-girlfriend Jeane Manson are the subject of a complaint for rape, sexual assault and embezzlement of a minor. This complaint was filed on January 21, 2021 by Coline Berry-Rojtman, the actor’s eldest daughter, with the Paris public prosecutor. The alleged facts date from 1984 to 1986, when Coline Berry was between 8 and 10 years old. The minors protection brigade is seized of the investigation to shed light on the case despite the fact that the facts are prescribed. The investigation was finally closed on August 31, 2022 due to prescription.
The very evening of the filing of the complaint, Richard Berry firmly denied the allegations against him. In a story published on her official Instagram account, we can read these words: “I deny with all my strength and without ambiguity these filthy accusations. I have never had an inappropriate or incestuous relationship with Coline or with any of my children. “These allegations are false. Even repeated a hundred times, through the press or any other means, they are nothing but a lie.”
Le Monde, which was investigating the subject after being alerted by Coline Berry-Rojtman and before Le Point revealed the filing of a complaint, published in an article on February 3 the details of the charges against Richard Berry and Jeane Manson. “When the couple had custody of the children at the weekend, is it written in the complaint, it would have happened to them, the morning after their antics, to invite them to the parental bedroom for sexual games.” Richard Berry would have asked his eldest daughter to “play the orchestra with her sexual organs and those of her partner (penis, breasts), the two adults being naked. (…) Ms. Coline Berry would therefore have been forced to affix her mouth on Mr. Berry’s sex, all in the presence of the other child, and repeatedly.” According to Coline Berry-Rojtman, she suffered these “games” “dozens of times” when she was less than ten years old.
In an interview published by Le Figaro on February 4, Jeane Manson also denies all of Coline Berry’s accusations. She also assures that she would have filed a complaint against Richard Berry herself if she had suspected anything about it. “I never participated in the so-called sex games she talks about, of course. As for what she says about her father’s attitude, my reaction is very clear. If I had known, or the slightest suspicion, of the tiniest unnatural act against Coline, I would have immediately started the legal process to denounce the author.”
Coline Berry Rojtman was born in 1976: her father is Richard Berry, her mother the actress Catherine Hiegel. Today aged 45, little is known about her, except that she was married to film producer Romain Rojtman (“L’educe Ducobu”, “Qu’est-ce-qu’on a done to the good god”) and mother of a family. She would be cold for several years with Richard Berry, especially since he announced that he would be a father for the third time, in 2014. An investigation, led by the minors protection brigade, is in progress and must make the light on the case, in particular by determining whether there may have been other victims. Through her lawyer, Master Shebabo, Coline Berry-Rojtman says she is in any case ready to be confronted with her father.
Her ex-mother-in-law, Jeane Manson, filed a complaint against Coline Berry for defamation following accusations of incest against her and her former companion Richard Berry. The Aurillac court rendered its decision on April 14, 2022: Coline Berry is sentenced for defamation to a fine of 2,000 euros and 20,000 euros in damages (and 5,000 euros in legal costs) following the publication of an article in Le Monde and an intervention in the program Le Live BFM.