Arielle Dombasle victim “of lies and broken promises”: furious with Netflix, she counterattacks!

It is the new Netflix documentary that is making waves: after the November 13 attacks, the Grégory affair and Monique Olivier, the platform’s producers decided to tackle a new topic that had long fascinated France. Bettencourt affair. At the center of this story is Liliane Bettencourt, an eighty-year-old heiress to the L’Oréal empire and designated as the richest woman in the world.

And around her two characters who clashed for a long time: her daughter, Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers, and François-Marie Banier, a photographer who became her great friend and who accused the daughter of excessive weakness given the amounts he gave Liliane Bettencourt . A colorful photographer, if we listen to the testimonies presented to him in 1987 by… Arielle Dombasle, who agreed to remember this moment for the documentary.

“I was the one who made the connection between them and said to him: ‘He is a great photographer, full of spontaneity, who photographs on the street, who is very artistic, very funny. Receive it, it will be great’“, we hear him say. The photographer was 40 years old at the time and agreed to photograph Liliane Bettencourt. He quickly became very close to the billionaire, so much so that for many years he was called heir to her fortune.

“François-Marie is someone who catches you. And that day he probably seduced Liliane” says Arielle Dombasle, who also describes it as “a bit burlesque, but talented“, but also able to “a sometimes quite fierce look at people“.”He is able to seduce whoever he wants. He has quite a devilish side“, finally concludes the actress who admits that “likes parties, games and certain social events“.

A ‘truncated’ testimony and ‘broken promises’

A way of presenting things that ultimately did not like Arielle Dombasle: very upset she denounced the interventions “truncated“which are lent to him, which”accentuated the program and placed her at the center of an affair of which she was only one witness“, she would have discovered with “bewilderment” the result of the documentary, according to a virulent press release sent on Monday, November 13 (can be found in its entirety in our slideshow).

“She has a friendship, sympathy and respect towards all actors in this case that requires that her testimony be neither betrayed nor biased. This is why she demanded and received that production offer her the opportunity to revise her testimony “so that it validates the editing of her comments and their insertion into the program.”“, his representatives also wrote.

It must be said that Bernard-Henri Levy’s wife “sincerely hoped, based on the production’s written promises, that his testimony would serve a truth, honesty and objectivity that was completely absent from the final product. Everything is fiction, shortcuts, prejudices and Miss Arielle Dombasle cannot accept that she is an involuntary actress in this fictionalized masquerade, while her conditions were accepted in writing and she had only been confided on the basis of this firm commitment.‘ she finally adds.

A dry press release, in which the very angry actress also remembers”that her most essential rights have been violated, that she is the victim of lies and broken promises“and condemns”the methods used“. We warned you, there is no giving in!