A British actress suing veteran film director Roman Polanski for defamation broke down in tears in a Paris criminal court today as she described how he allegedly raped her before launching a ‘defamation campaign’ to discredit the allegations.

Charlotte Lewis, 56, said Polanski attacked her as a teenager before trying to portray her as a child prostitute after she went public with the allegations on the first day of her libel trial against the 90-year-old in the French capital on Tuesday.

Waiving her legal right to anonymity, Ms Lewis said: ‘It’s a defamation campaign against me that has lasted since 2010. It almost destroyed my whole life.’

She added: ‘People believed what was written in the articles about me. They called me a prostitute.’

Ms Lewis claims she was attacked on the first night she met Polanski, when she was auditioning for his 1986 film ‘Pirates’ in Paris. She first made the allegations of sexual assault in 2010, which were dismissed as a ‘heinous lie’ by Polanski years later.

In court today, Ms Lewis said Polanski tried to present her as a child prostitute, with significant consequences for her reputation and social life.

It was the first time that Polanski, a married father of two, has faced court justice since running away from America in 1977 after pleading guilty to having unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl.

British actress Charlotte Lewis arrives at the Batignolles district courthouse for a trial over allegations Franco-Polish filmmaker Roman Polanski defamed her, in Paris on March 5, 2024

Charlotte Lewis arrives with French lawyer Benjamin Chouai at the Batignolles district courthouse for a trial over allegations Franco-Polish filmmaker Roman Polanski defamed her

Roman Polanski (pictured in 2017) has denied the claims made by Charlotte Lewis 

Charlotte Lewis (R) and Roman Polanski (C) pictured together in Cannes in 1986

Speaking at the 17th Chamber of the Paris Correctional Court today, Ms Lewis said: ‘It was the first night I met him. He decided the hotel we were staying in wasn’t great.

‘So, he took us back to his apartment. We went out to dinner. Then we came back, Karen, a mutual friend, went to bed, and that’s when he raped me.’

Asked why she did not mention the attack until a press conference at the Cannes Film Festival in 2010, Ms Lewis said: ‘I didn’t realise it was rape.’

‘I didn’t even know that word. I knew what happened to me wasn’t right, but I didn’t know how to put a word to it.

‘He was the only adult man in my life. I have no father, brother or uncle. I had no other male role model. He became the only male role model I had. So it was disturbing. Because of that, I became anorexic.’

In 2010, Ms Lewis first accused Polanski of attacking her ‘in the worst possible way’ when she was a 16-year-old auditioning for his 1986 film ‘Pirates’ in Paris.

Polanski – whose hit movies include Rosemary’s Baby and Chinatown – later described the claim as a ‘heinous lie’ in a 2019 interview with Paris Match magazine.

In the interview, he pulled out a copy of the now defunct British newspaper The News of the World, which quoted Ms Lewis as saying: ‘I was fascinated by him, and I wanted to be his lover.’

Ms Lewis, who was portrayed in the article as someone who became a prostitute at the age of 14, rebuked the claims and filed the libel complaint against Polanski.

She started crying on mentioning her only child in court, saying he had read all the accusations made by Polanski.

Ms Lewis told the court: ‘My son was snubbed, he was no longer invited to birthday parties because his friends’ parents had read the defamatory articles about me. It was hard, it was very hard.’

‘Discrediting and defaming (people) is an integral part of the Polanski system, and this is what Charlotte Lewis is very bravely calling out,’ her lawyer Benjamin Chouai told reporters earlier today.

Polanski’s lawyer Delphine Meillet said there had been no defamation in the Paris Match article.

‘Polanski has the right to defend himself publicly, as does the woman who accuses him,’ she said.

His defence lawyers have called on Stuart White, who wrote the 1999 News of the World article, to appear as a witness during the trial.

In the contested article about Ms Lewis, he purportedly described ‘how she went from hooker to Hollywood’.

The tabloid, which was regularly accused of libel and fabricating quotes, was forced to close in 2011 after its employees were accused of phone hacking in pursuit of stories.

Polanski is not due to appear in court for the case involving Charlotte Lewis, his lawyers have said. 

British actress Charlotte Lewis (R) arrives with French lawyer Benjamin Chouaiat (L) at the Batignolles district courthouse for trial on March 5, 2024

(L to R) Chris Campion, Roman Polanski and Charlotte Lewis at the ‘Pirates’ photocall at the 39th International Cannes Film Festival, France, May 8, 1986

Roman Polanski’s lawyers, French lawyer Alain Jakubowicz (C) and French lawyer Delphine Meillet (C-R) arrive at the Batignolles district courthouse for trial on March 5, 2024

Polanski is wanted in the United States over the rape of a 13-year-old in 1977 and faces several other accusations of alleged sexual assault dating back decades and past the statute of limitations – all claims he has rejected.

The director fled to Europe in 1978.

In 2010, Ms Lewis said she decided to speak out to counter suggestions from Polanski’s legal team that the 1977 rape case was an isolated incident.

She spoke in the Los Angeles offices of Gloria Allred, a high-profile attorney who has also represented women accusing US producer Harvey Weinstein, sit-com star Bill Cosby and former US president Donald Trump.

Discussing her case outside the Paris Correctional Court, Ms Lewis said that the attack on her reputation was far more damaging than the rape.

‘It was much worse because the defamation has made me suffer every day for fourteen years,’ she told Le Parisien.

‘I have had to deal with people thinking that I prostituted myself at the age of 14, which I could never have done and never did.

‘When the smear campaign against me began in 2010, I felt treated like someone who wasn’t even a human being.

‘I felt like I had to flee and could no longer have any contact with others.

‘It’s like I’m living a nightmare that I can’t wake up from. It consumed my entire being. I developed post-traumatic stress disorder, had a nervous breakdown and was blacklisted as an actress.’

Asked about Polanski staying away from court, Ms Lewis said: ‘I’m surprised he doesn’t want to be in front of me. I’ll be there, I’m not afraid. If he’s so sure I’m lying, then why has he never sued me for defamation?’

Polanski spoke out against Ms Lewis soon after Frenchwoman Valentine Monnier became the sixth woman to directly accuse the director of having raped her.

British actress Charlotte Lewis as she appeared in the 1986 film ‘Pirates’ 

Charlotte Lewis (L) and Eddie Murphy appear together in The Golden Child (1986) 

Chris Campion, Charlotte Lewis and Roman Polanski (L to R) in Cannes, May 8, 1986

France, Switzerland and Poland have refused to extradite Polanski to the United States.

But plans for Polanski to preside over the Cesars, the French equivalent of the Oscars, were dropped in early 2017 under pressure from feminists.

Between 2017 and 2019, four other women came forward with claims that Polanski also abused them in the 1970s, three of them as minors. He has denied all allegations.

Among them, California artist Marianne Barnard accused him of sexually assaulting her in 1975 after asking her to pose naked when she was 10 years old.

At the 2020 Cesars ceremony, actress Adele Haenel walked out in protest at Polanski being awarded for his film ‘An Officer and a Spy’.

The director has in recent years kept a very low profile, his latest film ‘The Palace’ premiering without him in Venice last summer.

The defamation trial comes as French cinema reels from accusations it has too long provided cover for abuse.

At this year’s Cesars Awards, actress Judith Godreche denounced ‘impunity’ in the film industry, after accusing two directors of raping and sexually assaulting her as a teenager.