'I carried the shame long enough': Gisèle Pelicot on justice, survival and confronting her ex-husband

Gisele Pelicot — (Image credit: Getty Images)

How do you even start to comprehend the horror of the ordeal endured by Gisèle Pelicot and what it has taken for her to survive it? UK viewers will get gain some insight tomorrow evening when her interview with night when journalist Victoria Derbyshire airs on Newsnight.

During a gut-wrenching conversation, Ms Pelicot takes viewers behind the headlines, to the heart of the depravity and cruelty she endured at the hands of her ex-husband, Dominique Pelicot and dozens of other men. But throughout her harrowing account, one message stands out – her support and encouragement for survivors to pick up the torch she’s lit and carry it forward.

Ms Pelicot’s case is one of unimaginable horror, the details of which first emerged in 2020, three months after her then-husband was arrested and charged with multiple instances of upskirting. She was shown evidence that would change her life. Mr Pelicot had been drugging her and inviting men to their house at night, where they would repeatedly rape her.

“It was inconceivable that this man who shared my life could have committed these horrors. It was a descent into hell,” she explained. “We were crushed by the horror.”

No matter how many times the details of Mr Pelicot’s crimes are heard, the impact never diminishes. Like any one of us, Ms Pelicot believed her home in the quiet town of Mazan was her sanctuary, her safe space. Instead, her husband of almost 50 years was slipping pills into her food and drink, before he and dozens of other men raped her. He did this for nearly a decade until police investigating the upskirting case found photos and videos cataloguing the campaign of violence against his wife.

“I saw crime scenes, terrible scenes, and you wonder how a human being is capable of doing that,” she said of seeing the footage.

As the court case approached in 2024, Ms Pelicot could have chosen to remain anonymous, but didn’t for one clear reason. “I wanted the shame to shift to the other side. I’d carried it for more than four years. That self-inflicted pain, I felt, meant victims were being punished twice,” she tells Victoria Derbyshire. “And I thought that if I was able to overcome it, all victims could do it too.”

It’s remarkable that despite the trauma she has endured, Ms Pelicot turned her thoughts to others, and did what she believed could bring about a radical change.

“They must not lose confidence. They must dare to choose a public trial. It’svery important. It’s also a path to self-recovery,” she explained.

This interview comes as Ms Pelicot releases her memoir, ‘A Hymn To Life’, which details every part of this harrowing journey. She recalls the moment she realised what her ex-husband had done. “Something exploded inside me. I was in such a state… It was like a tsumani". And describes phoning her three children to tell them as “the worst moment of my life”.

Ms Pelicot reveals she intends to visit Dominique Pelicot in prison: “I think I need to see him to get answers. I don’t know if I’ll get them.”

As it stands, 43 men have been found guilty of raping Gisèle Pelicot, two of attempted rape and two of sexual assault. Throughout the interview, Ms Pelicot remains calm and composed, even when discussing some of the most horrific moments she’s endured. It’s only when Victoria Derbyshire shows her footage of grateful women thanking her for her courage that Ms Pelicot becomes emotional.

When speaking of the women who turned up to support her at court each day, she said: “They gave me incredible strength, and I think my story echoed their suffering. The women I met were often victims who’d never dared to file a complaint. And quite a few told me they would now have the strength to do so.

“I hope I managed to transmit that message of hope to all the victims. I passed on the torch to them, and I hope that today they will dare to speak out and, if one day they too have a trial, that they will also open it. I think it will help to transform all their suffering. They must also dare to do what I did, they have the strength to do it.”

Gisèle Pelicot: The Newsnight Interview airs on Sunday 15 February on BBC Two at 10pm, and is available to watch on BBC iPlayer now.

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