Raquel VillaécijaParis Correspondent
Paris Correspondent
Updated Thursday, January 18, 2024-21:33
France is living these weeks pending a soap opera whose protagonist is one of the most famous actors the country has ever had.
It is the
Alain Delon
affair
, as they have called it.
At 87 years old, the famous performer, also
one of the great leading men of French cinema
, is at the center of a mess that includes complaints and accusations and intrigues between his three children: Anthony (59 years old), Anouchka (33) and Alain -Fabien (29).
The fights, both in the courts and on television sets, revolve around the actor's health and doubts about
his ability to discern
.
Anthony believes that his sister is trying to pressure his father to move to Switzerland.
He and his brother defend his father's wish to spend his last days at his house in Douchy, in the Loire Valley.
They ask that he be placed under guardianship.
His sister accuses them of having withdrawn the treatment she was receiving.
The soap opera dates back to a few months ago: last July, the actor's three children denounced the woman who lived with him and took care of him, the Japanese artist
Hiromi Rollin
, 88 years old.
They accused her of
abuse of weakness and mistreatment
.
Delon and Rollin met on a set 20 years ago.
Delon's children defend that she is the woman who helps him.
To know more
Cinema.
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Editor: LUIS MARTÍNEZ (Special Envoy)Cannes
Thousands of signatures against the Cannes honorary award to Alain Delon for "misogynist, homophobic and anti-Semitic"
If at the beginning they went as a group, today everyone is on their own, and so far in January, complaints and criticisms have not stopped crossing each other.
The one who started the fight was Anthony (58 years old), who announced in
Paris Match
that he had denounced his little sister for having hidden the results of
the neurological tests
that had been performed on his father in Switzerland.
The response was immediate: his sister, who lives in the Alpine country, filed another lawsuit for defamation,
slander, threats and harassment
, while Alain Delon himself filed another against his son for the same reasons.
"Alain Delon can no longer stand the aggressiveness of his son, who keeps telling him that he is senile," the actor's advisor explained to various media.
Since then, reactions and accusations have occurred, day after day, on the sets and in the pages of magazines.
No one has held back.
Christophe Ayela, lawyer for the protagonist of
The Leopard
, declared this week that, contrary to what his children believe, the actor "has not lost his lucidity."
"It is useless and humiliating. He is still coherent," he told the newspaper
Le Parisien
.
The disputes have reached a point that the judge has had to intervene to
request that medical examinations be carried out
and thus be able to assess his condition.
An expert has ruled that, for the moment, Alain Delon is
fully competent
.
The case is partly reminiscent of that of Liliane Bettencours,
the wealthy heiress of L'Óreal
.
She died in 2017, this very high-profile case, about which Netflix has produced a series, confronted her daughter, who accused a photographer friend of the millionaire of taking advantage of her fragility to manipulate her and take money from her.
Mother and daughter ended up facing each other.
Also in this case the status of the L'Óreal heiress was very weak.
In addition to Delon's care,
the issue of inheritance
when he dies also looms.
According to the newspaper
Le Figaro
, the daughter would receive 50% of what she leaves behind, while the two brothers would share the remaining 50%.
Anthony is the son of Nathalie Delon, while the other two are the son of Rosalie Van Breemen.
While the media spectacle continues, the performer's health is worrying.
This has been recognized by his son Anthony's lawyer, Laurence Bedossa, who has explained that she can barely walk.
Alain Delon suffered a cardiovascular accident in 2019. Two years later, in
Paris Match
,
he took a position in favor of euthanasia
.
In one book, his son Anthony defends that it is his father's will and that he asked him to be taken off life support if he falls into a coma.
The public prosecutor, Jean Cédric Gaux, announced that he was going to open a procedure to place
the actor
under judicial protection .
These days he has even spoken to the Japanese artist, who was expelled by his children in the summer.
Hiromi Rollin has shown her concern about the actor's condition, after having spoken with him by phone.
"His life is in danger. I'm not afraid to say he's in mortal danger."