Adèle Haenel is a 34-year-old French actress. She’s been working since she was a kid, but she’s probably best known to international audiences for her stunning turn in 2019’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire. In 2020, she filed charges against French director Christophe Ruggia for sexually assaulting her when she was 12 years old and working with Ruggia in The Devils. She’s been nominated for multiple Cesar awards and won two Cesars, and she was the sole actress who stormed out of the 2020 Cesar Awards when Roman Polanski won the Best Director Cesar. She has been an outspoken advocate for #MeToo in the French film industry for years. And now she’s retiring from acting because she can’t deal with the misogyny within her industry.
French actress Adèle Haenel, the star of Portrait of a Lady on Fire, has announced her retirement from the movie business, saying the complacency and indifference of the French industry to the #MeToo movement is behind her decision.
In a letter published on media news site Télérama on Tuesday, Haenel she wanted to use the public declaration of her retirement from the film business as a way to call out the “general complacency” within the French industry “vis-à-vis sexual aggressors.”
Despite several high-profile examples of sexual abuse and misconduct within the French film industry, many of which came to light in the wake of the #MeToo movement, Haenel says the powers that be have chosen to ignore and ostracize women who have come forward to sound the alarm. “They join hands [to protect] the [Gerard] Depardieus, the [Roman] Polanskis, the [Dominique] Boutonnats,” she writes in her Télérama letter, referencing three of the most prominent French film figures accused of abuse. “It bothers them that the victims make too much noise. They preferred that we disappear and die in silence.”
Those with power inside the industry have effectively “canceled” the French #MeToo movement, Haenel writes. “You have the money, the strength, and all the glory [but] you won’t have me as a spectator. I cancel you from my world.”
In 2020, Haenel stormed out of the 45th César Awards — France’s Oscars — when Roman Polanski was awarded the best director prize for his new film An Officer and a Spy. The actor shouted “shame!” as she left, followed by her Portrait of a Lady director Céline Sciamma.
I have so much admiration for Haenel, especially given the even more pervasive misogyny within the French film industry. Like, Hollywood is sexist as hell and there are so many powerful men who still protect abusers within the industry… but in Hollywood, victims do have some power and they have a voice and they are believed. There was a genuine shift in 2017/2018 where Hollywood women began standing up for themselves and for each other. That hasn’t happened in the French film industry – the handful of victims/survivors who have told their stories are dismissed and marginalized. Even at this year’s Cesar Awards, the entire audience gave a huge ovation to Brad Pitt, someone who physically, emotionally and financially abused his ex-wife.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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- Adele Haenel CINEMA : 72 eme Festival de Cannes – Photocall du film Portrait,Image: 512086174, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Norbert Scanella / Panoramic / Avalon
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- 72nd Cannes Film Festival 2019, Photocall film : Portrait de la jeune fille en feu Pictured: Adele Haenel USA, CAN, AUS, ESP, POR, S AMERICA ONLY Photograph: © IPA/PacificCoastNews. Los Angeles Office (PCN): +1 310.822.0419 UK Office (Avalon): +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 sales@pacificcoastnews.com,Image: 512176723, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: USA, CAN, AUS, ESP, POR, S AMERICA ONLY – Los Angeles Office (PCN): +1 310.822.0419 UK Office (Avalon): +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 sales@pacificcoastnews.com, Model Release: no, Credit line: IPA/PacificCoastNews / Avalon
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- Adele Haenel attends ‘Portrait Of A Lady On Fire’ UK Premiere during the 63rd BFI London Film Festival at the Embankment Garden Cinema in London, England. 8th October 2019. -,Image: 539038658, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: James Warren / Bang Showbiz / Avalon
She’s an icon. And this fight is exhausting. I can’t imagine fighting it in the public eye.
She is a stunning actress and this is a big loss to French cinema but all I can think is good for her for ditching an industry that won’t change.
I look forward to see what she does next and if it remains in a creative field.
This sucks. I hope someone like Reese Witherspoon or Jessica Chastain reaches out to her.
In 2017 Jessica was a judge at Cannes and she called out the shocking amount of misogyny, disturbing female roles, and lack of female films/directors represented in the films that year. The French shrugged it off.
Good for her. Hope she’s able to translate this into activism–or success in whatever else she chooses to do. She doesn’t have to keep re-injuring herself if taking up this cause causes her pain. I just hope she knows she’s respected, admired, believed, and supported.
Now this lady deserves a standing ovation. A real example of talking the talk and walking the walk.
I’m sorry that she experienced such indifference from her industry. I feel what makes it worse is that the rest of society could have rallied behind women like her to force a change in the industry because money talks after all. I suspect that indifference abs even annoyance towards women who speaks out is pervasive throughout French (and many other countries) society.
Good on her. Expect Cannes to be once again a misogynist sh!t show. They’re going to fall all over Johnny Depp and The Weeknd’s torture porn.
This shows the industry would rather protect male predators because “art” but lose incredibly female artists. It was never about art.
This makes me sad as I loved her in Portrait and adored that film, but good for her, I hope she is happy on her new path.
Absolutely a great talent and loss to the industry. Hope she is/will be ok.
I’d say in Hollywood when 20 women tell the same story about a well known predator who is *also* losing power, maybe they are believed. For every story that makes the press, there are tens if not hundreds of stories about the same predator that were swept under the rug.
plenty of known predators are still employed and making bank because there were only 15 women who came forward, or his name isn’t well known. (We hear about the famous people, but there are big power people behind the scenes who have way more power than an actor etc and we never hear about them.)
the idea that Hollywood listens to women is way over sold on purpose. The PR of looking like they care is bs, but it’s better than nothing.
Good for her but I’m sad that women keep having to choose to walk away from,their careers because of the complacency.
I hope she finds a field where she’s respected and valued.
Wow. She will be greatly missed and I hope her courageous action sends a strong message to the French movie industry and beyond. Bravo.
I love France. I speak the language, spent my sophomore year of high school in Paris as an exchange student, and go back to visit as often as I can. But the French attitude towards anyone who speaks up about inequality of any sort — race, gender, sexuality, etc. — is so often dismissive, and unfortunately a lot of women (with a lot of internalized misogyny) take that route, too. There were so many women saying things along the lines of “they’re taking #MeToo too far” or lamenting that men aren’t allowed to “seduce” (read: coerce) women anymore (of course this didn’t only happen in France, but it seemed to come from a wider range of ages there). When I was in there as a 15-year-old, long before #MeToo, I remember my host mother and her friend even kind of rolling their eyes at the entire concept of feminism when my host sister and I were doing a project about it, saying it was unnecessary because in France, everyone is equal. They really lean into that “égalité” part of the national motto, as if just saying it enough will make it come true.
THAT is what Adèle Haenel was up against, and while she wasn’t exactly fighting alone, she did not receive nearly as much support as she should have from her peers in the industry. It’s shameful that the indifference pushed her to this point. I hope she continues to use her voice to fight for women (provided that doesn’t mean retraumatizing herself). We need to hear this, everywhere.
France is the original colonizer state. They have never actually believed in what they claim to. Just as the refugees, immigrants, Muslims, Black people who live there.
After reading the headline I thought “Brave”. I have no idea who she is. But I know the French film industry.
It didnt start like Hollywood AT ALL. The French cinema is all about the director or producer. They are self funded. They don’t care about ticket sells. They play to a small group of movie goers. Another reason why they love Roman Polansky. He is one of them and actually can sell tickets. He is a hero to them.
In France she would have to become a director and self fund.
She really is brave. In the past some usa casting director would call her up and offer her a job but i don’t think that’s going to happen in today’s world. The usa has adopted the European movie making model. If you dont want to play this matchmaker/dating/nudity game they will hold you back.
Wow, I hate that she felt this was necessary. Why isn’t she getting support from other French actresses? Solidarity, Adele!
I thought she retired last year or the year before? Good for her either way, but her on-screen presence will be missed. I hope she will be able to return in the future. <3
She did retire last year. She re-announced her retirement just now a year later in advance of the Cannes film festival to also point out that protesters there are being squashed from speaking up/out. Haenel was a necessary voice and presence in film as a queer and somewhat non-binary person. Not only is her disappearance a loss for the French film industry but also all those who saw themselves represented when she was onscreen. Sadly, by leaving she will lose the platform she earned with her work to continue to speak out and advocate with the microphone she will no longer have. I agree with her point but leaving won’t accomplish much. It’s a loss for her too. I would have loved to see her find other paths of advocacy staying in the game. Life will go on, other actresses will take over the jobs she won’t have any more and misogynists will remain. They actually won by having her gone as she was she was a thorn in their path. On the one hand glad she is living her truth but also think there were other pathways she could have taken. She silenced herself with retirement that sucks, exhausting as standing up against all that must have been. Sad the world will largely miss out on her great talent.
Victim blamey how much of her life do you feel she should give up to being abused in order to speak out ?