‘It does not carry a household collectively’: In her first interview, GISELE PELICOT reveals horrific well being issues brought on by rapes, recent rigidity together with her son, why she desires to satisfy together with her husband… and shocking approach she’s discovered love once more

Gisèle Pelicot gives a contained but warm smile as she explains how, in her 70s, she has unexpectedly found love again. Her trepidation at discovering happiness with a widower named Jean-Loup is understandable.

‘It happened almost by accident, because I never thought I’d fall in love again or would even want to,’ she says. ‘Neither of us expected it at all. And we thought, “Why not? Why not allow ourselves to be happy?”’

After a marriage lasting almost 50 years, Gisèle was nervous about becoming intimate with the former Air France steward, who she met through mutual friends when she moved to the French resort of Île de Ré in 2023. He was only the third man she had ever gone to bed with.

‘We felt fragile. We had no idea what to expect. I didn’t know how my body would react. In the end, there was a mixture of tears and laughter,’ she says. ‘We were like two teenagers starting a new romance.’

Yet these are not two ordinary people enjoying later-life love. And Gisèle Pelicot is no ordinary woman. Her ability to trust any man ever again is remarkable. Eighteen months ago Gisèle, now 73, became a global symbol of strength for abuse survivors everywhere, after defiantly waiving her legal right to anonymity at a rape trial the likes of which the world had never seen.

In a courthouse in Avignon, France, her husband Dominique Pelicot admitted to drugging and raping her – inviting dozens of men he met on the internet to sexually assault her while unconscious in her bed – for almost a decade. In December 2024, Pelicot was convicted of aggravated rape and given a 20-year sentence. 

All of the 50 co-defendants were found guilty of committing aggravated rape, attempted rape or sexual assault against Gisèle, and were sentenced to between three and 15 years’ imprisonment. Only one ended up appealing and lost in court last year.

Gisèle attended the entire four-month trial and the appeal, a tiny figure with a neat bob and tailored jackets, whose quiet strength and dignity against the unfolding horrors of the case prompted thousands to march in support, with murals of her face appearing across the country.

Today she is in Paris. We meet in her agent’s offices, across the road from the Louvre, to talk about A Hymn To Life, the autobiography she never thought she would write, which is already one of the biggest publishing stories of the year. Gisèle is at ease and stylish in a delicately embroidered white shirt, black and white loafers and perfectly tailored jacket. Her trademark bob with soft fringe is as immaculate as the day she made headlines across the world.

Despite the distressing nature of our conversation, Gisèle keeps her head high, speaks clearly and maintains eye contact, only pausing to take sips of water. She talks about the unimaginable in the manner of someone who will simply keep going, no matter what.

‘I had absolutely no intention of writing a book initially,’ she says. ‘Offers started coming in during the trial, and I asked myself, why this book? Then I thought it could be helpful to others, and that telling my story, sharing what happened, was also a way to support victims of sexual violence and to show them that we have the inner strength to recover.’

Her case was unlike any other; the sheer scale of it horrific, with 51 defendants (a ‘pack of rapists’, she writes in the book). It was also rare to have such powerful evidence in a rape case – each violent and perverted act had been filmed by Pelicot. Though at first Gisèle wanted to keep the trial and the video evidence private, she felt that doing so would merely protect her rapists. 

‘When I decided against the closed-door hearing, I didn’t imagine for a second what I was going to experience,’ she tells me. ‘I didn’t imagine that the response would be so widespread. It was overwhelming and a little terrifying.’

With each passing day, the crowds of women waiting outside to show Gisèle their support grew and grew. Soon enough, millions of people found out about the ordinary men – the 56-year-old firefighter and the 30-year-old temp; the 43-year-old journalist and the 26-year-old soldier – who had raped an unconscious woman. One man, Gisèle writes in the book, ‘used to greet me very politely at the boulangerie’. Pelicot had even told some of the rapists where Gisèle did their shopping so they could stalk her around the supermarket in daylight.

Yet for nearly half a century, the mother-of-three had what she described as a ‘fulfilling’ life with a man she loved; a seemingly devoted husband and present father. She discovered her life with Pelicot had been a façade in November 2020, when she was asked to attend a police appointment with him. He had recently been arrested for upskirting some women in a Leclerc supermarket in Carpentras and had his phone and computer seized; he’d apologised to his wife and she warned him if it happened again, she would leave.

Gisèle believed the police interview would be a formality. It was anything but. The lieutenant took them into different rooms. It was explained that her husband was being charged with aggravated rape and for administering toxic substances – and she was shown pictures of a lifeless-looking woman, who she initially struggled to recognise as herself. 

A woman who was being raped by one man after another at her home in the village of Mazan in Provence. Pelicot had been secretly drugging her with benzodiazepines and sleeping pills for years, dressing her in lingerie, then serving her up to an endless procession of men who he liaised with online and invited to rape her while she was unconscious.

‘Her cheek was so floppy, her mouth so limp,’ she recalls about those pictures of herself. ‘She looked like a rag doll.’

It seemed too grotesque to be true.

‘Lieutenant Perret didn’t know how he was going to break the news to me, because he thought to himself, “This woman is going to collapse,”’ she says. ‘They were very afraid for my life.’

What followed resulted in an anonymous grandmother from a small French town becoming one of the 21st century’s most celebrated feminist figures. She received a letter of support from Queen Camilla, was personally thanked by Emmanuel Macron, and was named the most influential person of the year in a French opinion poll. It also tore her family life apart and forever altered relationships with those closest to her.

That day Gisèle left Carpentras police station alone, with the daunting task of calling her three children, David, Caroline and Florian – who all lived more than 400 miles away in Paris – to explain the unexplainable.

Her daughter responded by letting out ‘the howl of a wounded animal’. David, her eldest, stayed silent for a moment then hung up and ran to the bathroom to vomit. Florian, the youngest, managed to keep calm, and made sure that his mother was safe. All three called her constantly throughout the night.

The next day they travelled to Mazan and took their mother back to Paris with them. It was, she wrote, ‘the most painful moment of all’. ‘My children had lives to go back to,’ she explains. ‘I had nothing.’

Some of the details were and remain stomach-churning. In the book, she writes about a crown on her tooth coming loose. She realised later it had happened because of being orally raped. This is one of many mysterious symptoms she suffered from for nearly a decade, and which no one was able to adequately explain, doctors included.

Gisèle would have frequent memory lapses, once turning up for a hairdresser’s appointment she had already been to. She had endless blood tests, scans and multiple courses of vaginal pessaries. One doctor thought she’d maybe had a stroke. Another diagnosed anxiety and prescribed her melatonin. A third worried it might be Alzheimer’s. She had puzzling gynaecological problems – including an inflamed cervix – but no answer could be found. At no point did she suspect her husband.

A shocking passage in the book details how, in 2020 – after Pelicot had been arrested for upskirting that September and had sobbed to Gisèle, promising never to do it again – his violent rapes of his wife then increased. While he was out on bail, she was raped by him on 3 October 2020 and again on the 10th and 21st. Later, Gisele realised exactly why they had become more frequent during that month. ‘He must have known they would be his last; [that] the police would have found his photographs and videos,’ she writes in the book. ‘I would never again be the plaything of his barbaric fantasies.’

And yet she tells me, ‘I didn’t spend 50 years with a man who didn’t respect me. It might be shocking when I use these words today, given what happened, but I was a happy and fulfilled woman.’ She had a good career working for the state electricity company; he helped with the cooking and cleaning and actively took care of the children. The Pelicots were, as far as anyone was concerned, the ‘model couple’.

The only thing she thought of as odd in her marriage was that Pelicot sometimes photographed her naked as she left the bathroom. She didn’t enjoy it and would tell him off, but he argued that she should be thankful that her husband still found her so attractive.

Among the dozens of videos of Gisèle being abused were two disturbing pictures of her daughter, found among Pelicot’s computer files. The pictures show Caroline asleep or unconscious, partially undressed in bed, and wearing underwear she didn’t recognise.

To this day Caroline, 47, has no idea what happened to her, and what her father may or may not have done. She accused him of rape during the trial, but he denied having ever touched her. She does not believe him. During the investigation, it also came to light that Pelicot had taken pictures of Caroline and his daughters-in-law, Aurore and Céline, in the shower with a tiny spy-camera pen hidden in a toilet bag. He photoshopped images of Gisèle and Caroline side by side in lingerie and posted them on the internet.

‘What Caroline is going through is extremely painful,’ Gisèle tells me. ‘There are these doubts that condemn her to a perpetual hell, and to be condemned to that is appalling.’ Though we may never know for certain what happened, ‘these two photos raise questions,’ she adds, ‘because there’s still that incestuous gaze.’

In 2022, Caroline published a book I’ll Never Call Him Dad Again, then shared her story with YOU in 2025. Now a prominent campaigner, she has also launched Don’t Put Me Under, a group fighting against chemical submission.

Last year, during the publicity tour for her follow-up book, she accused Gisèle of ‘abandoning’ her by refusing to back up her claims against Pelicot. ‘When she says I abandoned her – that’s not entirely true. It’s complicated when you’ve just come out of a four-month trial where you’re exhausted, and she’s trying to get her father to tell her the truth. I hope she’ll get an answer, and at least that she’ll be recognised as a victim.’

Recently, the fractured mother-daughter relationship appears to be healing and they are now on speaking terms. ‘For me, helping her is incredibly complicated,’ Gisèle admits. ‘We’re not exactly in the same frame of mind but we’re finding peace, and I think we’re on the right track.’

Caroline got back in touch just before Christmas, as her mother was dealt some more distressing medical news.

As a result of Pelicot’s crimes, Gisèle contracted the HPV virus and, at her last smear, was found to have abnormal cells in her cervix. She received a biopsy and part of the cervix has been removed.

As this was unfolding, she also lost Lancôme, the French bulldog who had once been the family’s pet, and who had followed her everywhere after her life fell apart. ‘That dog was symbolic – I had him until the end,’ she says sadly. ‘The book was finished and he passed away. It’s quite extraordinary.’ Gisèle hopes for a face-to-face reunion with her daughter soon. ‘Our relationship is calmer,’ she says.

She adds that she spent many years shielding the people she loved. ‘I spent my life putting them before myself, practically until I started writing this book,’ she says. ‘Then I thought, maybe it’s time you focused on yourself. Write what you want to write. This life belongs to you.’

This is why she decided not to discuss the contents of the book with her children beforehand. It was a controversial choice, as she goes into grim detail of the days, weeks and months that followed her ex-husband’s arrest, as the Pelicot children attempted to come to terms with their father’s crimes.  

The revelations ruptured the family. As Gisèle’s relationship with Caroline worsened, she also began to speak less to David, 51, who had aligned himself with his sister. Their relationship grew increasingly strained in the aftermath of the trial, with ‘unanswered questions continuing to drive a wedge between us’, she writes.

Today she tells me, ‘You have to understand that such a tragedy doesn’t necessarily bring a family together. It’s a cataclysm that sweeps everything away. Everyone needs to be able to rebuild themselves in their own way.’

Though she stayed with David for a while after she left Mazan, the pair aren’t currently speaking. ‘It’s more complicated with David,’ she tells me. ‘I think he needs time. He’s the eldest. I think that, on top of everything else, they’re men. As men, they have questions. Also, they have their father’s DNA. It’s complicated. I’m giving [David] time to come back to me, if he wants to. I don’t want to be intrusive. I want to give him time to heal.’

While she remains close with Florian, 39, and sees his children Ella, Anna and Charlie, with David’s children, Nathan, Charlize and Clemence, she has to make do with being a ‘distant grandmother’ for now. She still texts them on their birthdays. ‘I told them they could call me. For the moment, they haven’t,’ she says. ‘I think everyone needs to heal. Perhaps it’s a way for them to protect themselves.’

One person she has remained in touch with is the man who quite possibly saved her life: the security guard, Thibaut, who first confronted her husband when he upskirted those women at the supermarket. During the trial, she went to the store and asked the manager if he was on shift that afternoon.

‘He said yes and he took me to the security office where there are all these screens monitoring the store,’ she says. ‘And the manager said to him, “I have Mrs Pelicot here for you.” He was moved to tears. We fell into each other’s arms. I thanked him. We took a picture together.’ She plans to return to give him a copy of her book.

During the trial, the whole world got to look on as the ruins of Gisèle’s life were picked over. While harrowing, she says the experience was cathartic. ‘This trial resonated with so many women,’ she says. ‘In the thousands of letters I’ve received from around the world, there’s a lot of suffering. There are many women who have been raped, who don’t feel that they can talk about it. It may have given them strength.’

While she dislikes the word ‘icon’, she is happy to be seen as a ‘symbol’. ‘I’m glad I offered my story as an example and my name as a banner,’ she says. More than anything, Gisèle believes that shame has to change sides. Victims of abuse should be able to walk with their heads held high, the perpetrators are the ones who should be shunned. To that end, although her legal surname is now Guillou, after her father, she still prefers to go by Pelicot. ‘The name of my children and grandchildren,’ she writes in the book. ‘So that they will never be ashamed of it.’

Still, there was one man there, in that courtroom, who had to leave the premises whenever graphic evidence was shown, because she’d asked him to.

Jean-Loup, a good-humoured man with salt-and-pepper hair and a penchant for colourful clothing, is the widower Gisèle met in 2023. ‘Neither of us expected it at all. When I met Jean-Loup, I felt completely at ease.’

She adds, ‘It might seem surprising to say that this woman, with everything she’s been through, still had it in her to be trusting, but that’s how I function.’ The couple now live happily together on the Île, in part thanks to his family. ‘I thought about it for a long time before moving in with him,’ she says, ‘because it’s the house he and his wife bought together.

I was hesitant, thinking I didn’t have the right. But in the end, it was his children who gave us the go-ahead. They said, “You’ve suffered enough, don’t waste any more time. Enjoy life!”’ So that is exactly what they have done.

When Gisèle first started working on her book, she decided not to let him see any of it, as it was so upsetting. As she neared the end, however, she realised she wanted to mention Jean-Loup and wanted to check he was happy with how he was portrayed. ‘I told him, “I’d like you to read this extract.” And he was so moved – I could see the tears streaming down his cheeks – that I said, “Well, I think you can read the whole thing now”.’

These days, the couple live a simple but fulfilling life. They have friends and family over for dinner and go for long walks and cycles. While she and Jean-Loup were already together as the court case unfolded, she kept the relationship hidden as she feared it could be used against her. ‘He was a gentleman. He stayed in the shadows,’ she says. ‘But today, he’s in the light with me.’

The search for answers is not yet over for Gisèle. A Hymn To Life ends with a series of questions she has about some unsolved crimes. In 2024, her ex-husband became the main suspect in the rape and murder of an estate agent in Paris in 1991, and the attempted rape of another young woman in 1999. He confessed to the latter when confronted with DNA evidence but denies the rape and murder.

Though she hasn’t been able to go and see him in prison yet, Gisèle likes to believe that, if it happens, she may be able to help. ‘I need answers, too, for this girl and for the cold cases,’ she says. ‘I hope Mr Pelicot will have a change of heart – I hope that, face to face, maybe, he’ll tell me the truth.’

Meanwhile, she says she intends to fully enjoy the years ahead. ‘I want to be at peace, happy, serene, and to enjoy the people I love, and those who love me. Despite everything I’ve been through, I still want to experience happy moments in life. When my time comes I would like to be able to say I did what I could.’

At the end of our interview, we walk out of the office and spot Jean-Loup patiently waiting for Gisèle in the room next door. He smiles and shakes my hand and as I leave, I hear him asking her how it all went. Within seconds, they’re chattering away in that beautiful Parisian building, a picture of happiness.