Gisèle Pelicot: My Life Before The World Knew My Name | Pt. 1

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1:56Davina McCall:Giselle Pellico became known publicly in 2024 when she waived her right to anonymity in the sexual assault case that shocked France and the world to the core. Today she joins me to share her story, what it means to be betrayed by the person you trusted most, why she chose to speak publicly and how she found strength even in the darkest chapter of her life and how she began again. This episode does include details of Giselle's case, parts of which may be difficult for some of you, so please watch with care. This conversation was recorded in both French and English. On YouTube, you can choose how to watch using the language options below.

2:33Davina McCall:This is part one of her story.

2:40Davina McCall:Madame Pellicot, merci beaucoup de venir ici à mon podcast, Begin Again. I'm now going to speak in English. I would love to explain to you the reason that I started this podcast. And it was basically to help people live a life that facilitated a happy death. So to get your life in order so that you can die happy. And I can't think of somebody who embodies a journey that will help people do that more than you. so thank you so much for coming to share your journey with us and how you have begun again and I'm so grateful to you for being here my first question is about Monsieur Pellicou and how how your love affair started Well our love affair began we were 19 years old we were a couple of kids because 19 at the time was very young in the 70s he was an electrician but my cousins who had taken over his father's business and then we fell in love I think we just fell madly in love and we started to talk together and then I realised that in his personal life he wasn't terribly happy he had a tyrannical authoritarian father I'd had a tough adolescence.

4:19I lost my mother when I was very young. My father remarried and my stepmother wasn't particularly nice. So we fell in love and we thought we'd save one another. That's what was interesting, to realize that we really believed in it and we really wanted to build together. We got married in April, 73. Everything seemed to go very well. We set up with very little, but we were so happy. You know Charlene Lassour's song, La Bohème. It was really like that. We loved one another. We were happy and had David in 1974. So we carried on being happy. There were no shadows. And it was very surprising when you know the end of the story.

5:02I didn't see this perverted man. I didn't see this man who was manipulative. I didn't see any of that. And I didn't think he was like that at the time. I think he was really sincere. We really loved one another. And then in 86, things were going well, but there were slight concerns as far as his professional path. Luckily, I had a job where I was earning pretty well. So I was really the main breadwinner. But then he started selling, but I felt it was chaotic. I felt that he was more fragile than me, and I felt that I was really leading things. But I didn't let him feel that. I tried to establish harmony for everything to go well between us, and that's what happened.

5:51I always had the positive side in my life. He always saw the glass being half empty, and I saw it being half full, and I feel that he had a negative side. I always tried to encourage him, and maybe there was, how can I say it, not this depression within him because you can't say it was depression, but he just didn't feel right. In other words, he wasn't able to obtain what he wanted in his professional life.

6:19Davina McCall:So, Monsieur Pellicot started to drug and rape you in 2011. Can you tell me what was your life with him and your family like at that time? everything seemed to go well of course we did have chaotic moments he had health problems financial problems we had couple problems but I felt that we'd overcome all that I felt that we'd got out of it even stronger but of course he already had that perversion within him that I'd never seen and nobody ever saw it neither our friends or our children how could you imagine something that's unthinkable you can't imagine that the man with whom you share your life for so many years is capable of chemically drugging you.

7:03It was impossible. I think he was able to hide it all. He knew exactly how to operate, and it was a kind of manipulation. You have to be very intelligent to do everything he did.

7:14Davina McCall:It's difficult to comprehend how a man can be so unbelievably manipulative. And my heart breaks for you, because you loved him and trusted him so much. that you felt guilty about accusing him of something that he was actually doing. Can you tell me about that night? Yes, one morning I was getting ready for the day, and I was getting dressed, and I put the trousers on that I had worn the night before, and I saw there were some strange stains, and I tried to think what had I done the night before, and I had no recollection. And then I start asking myself questions because I have a very good memory.

8:01I always remember what I do 10 days before. And I thought that was strange. He was in the garden, just working in the garden. And I said to him, well, I just said Dume, because that was his nickname. Dume, you're not dragging me, are you? And I don't know why I said that at that moment. Was my brain unconsciously alerting me? but I don't have the answer to that question and then he had a really surrealistic reaction he said can you imagine what you're saying to me that's really not possible and he started crying and I could see in his tears tears of my father when my mother was dying I realized that he was wounded I was harming him, hurting him and I said I don't know why I said that please forgive me so I felt culpable for having said that to him when in fact I was actually really discovering precisely what was going on.

9:01That was the truth, but I didn't know it at that point. Discovering, no, possibly it was unconscious at that moment and we don't talk about it again. I ask forgiveness and we don't talk about it again.

9:11Davina McCall:When did the story of him being accosted at the supermarket for taking the photographs up women's skirts, when did you find out about that? At the time when he admitted to me that he was caught in a supermarket, he had to tell me the truth, because the sub-lieutenant Perret was going to call me, so he didn't have a choice. In 2010, he had the same kind of behavior, but I was never informed that in fact he was caught in the supermarket in Saint -Émarnes, and he had a fine of 100 euros, but nobody warned me about that particular story. and we lost 10 years. That's crazy. Absolutely. I, O 'Neill was going to learn in January 2023 the fact that there was this fine of 100 euros and they took his DNA, but I was not informed of anything.

10:05Can you imagine if 2020, sous-le-tendant Perrette had the same reaction? I'm sure that I wouldn't be here in front of you today witnessing. They could have just said, oh, well, he's a man who's 68, his wife isn't there, let's drop it. They decided, no, let's just go and find out. And that's where they saw all the computer equipment. And it took time for them to find the proof on his laptop, on his phone. And I learned that 2nd of November, 2020, because I was called in October. I was with my children because I was looking after my grandchildren. They said, Mrs. Pellicot, has Mr. Pellicot told you what happened in Carpentras?

10:46And I said, yes. and I said to them, look, I don't know what happened in his head because after all, he's never behaved in that way before. I don't understand it. So they said, okay, are you free on the 2nd of November? And please come with your husband. And I said, of course, and I can come even before. But they hadn't finished investigating. They said, no, come on the 2nd of November with your husband. And on the 2nd of November, I was discovered precisely what had happened. And for me, that was really a total tsunami in my head, a deflagration. I didn't realize. It's only at that moment that I really was starting to realise it was appalling.

11:19Davina McCall:Madame Perico, I read about your childhood and your upbringing and it seemed happy, even though you had that terrible tragedy with your mother dying so young. You had a family life. It was normal. But I feel like you were so unprepared emotionally for that moment at the police station when they called you into that room alone. Do you mind, I know you've done this so many times, but just describing the feeling when you saw the first photograph, what went through your mind, your heart, your body when you saw that? I was only able to look at three photographs. I couldn't go any further because I wasn't recognizing myself on the photographs.

12:14But Sub-Lieutenant Perret said, look, I'm going to show you things that are not going to make you happy. And so I wasn't able to talk anymore. And my mouth became very dry. I asked for a glass of water. I didn't know what was going on. I couldn't imagine what they're going to reveal.

12:31And when I saw the first photograph, I saw a man next to me. And I thought, I don't know that man. And I don't recognize that woman at all. because she was so disguised. I saw a woman who was almost dead in her bed and disguised. They weren't my underwear, you know, with suspenders, which I don't wear. And I said, no, that's not me on the second photograph. I carry on saying, no, that's not me. I don't know this man. And then the sub-director said, look, we in fact carried out an investigation. There, it's your room. It's there, your bedside tables. And I think my brain kind of stopped. I disassociated.

13:08and it was too much for me and it took me time. It took me a lot of time to realize and it took me five or six hours because when I went home, they accompanied me and they asked me to call a friend because they didn't want me to stay on my own because after all, there were 53 individuals who hadn't yet been arrested and they said to me, you're in danger at home. You mustn't stay on your own. A friend came and in fact, they took my hair, samples of my hair, and they took some more samples of my hair to really check and then they could see all the drugs that were in my hair and they particularly asked me when I went home, everything was messed up.

13:42I couldn't even recognize my house because, in fact, they'd searched to try to find the medication and they didn't find the medication and they said, look, try to find the drugs, but it was like sort of trying to find a needle in a haystack and I didn't know where he'd hidden. So I searched in the house, in our cupboard where we kept pharmacy products, and the next day, once again, he was, in fact, in custody, and there he admitted where he'd hidden the medication. and of course I would never have found it myself because it was hidden in fact in a garage, in a tennis sock and there one could find the boxes of Temestat with a renewable prescription and there was a little bottle I can't remember what it was it was just to make my body relax and so they discovered his whole stratagem and he'd actually orchestrated everything

14:34and it really does make you freeze up. I mean, just think that I spent all these days, breakfast, lunch and dinner. He had no pity, he had no compassion. Knowing that I had these moments of absence, which were regular, I consulted neurologists who didn't understand anything. They thought I was just anxious, who thought that possibly I had the beginning of Alzheimer's. And so really it went under the radars. Why? Because they weren't trained. You can't possibly envisage The woman who's accompanied by her husband has been drugged by him. It's impossible because, after all, drugs are in nightclubs, in a bar, but not in the family home.

15:13Davina McCall:No, no. And really, it's a tool of violence, and it absolutely has to be unveiled. In the morning, I used to wake up. There were some symptoms. I had gynecological problems. I had these absences, and I thought that it was my mother's illness, possibly, that was also going through. But that's what's complicated, to say to the court, I mean, I saw the women lawyers for the defense say, oh, but madam, how come you didn't realize anything with your body was talking? Yes, it was talking, but there was no explanation because the medical court didn't discover anything. I saw my daughter's gynecologist, and before Christmas I had a problem, and my daughter took me to a gynecologist, and she carried out a scan of my ovaries, and he said, no, you've got nothing, You've just got a slight infection on your uterus, and I'll give you some medication.

16:05But in fact, afterwards, I had in fact four STDs. And at that point, I had to have some very strong medication. And you've got to alert, you've got to denounce, because after all, I don't want other women to undergo what I live through. They must always go and consult, and they've got to dare talk. They've got to dare denounce because often people feel shame. And so you keep to silence and you don't want to unveil who you are because it's shame that is carried by the victim. But it shouldn't be that way around at all. It's got to be the other way around. And they've got to have the courage to realise that they're not culpable for anything.

16:41Those victims must not feel culpable. They've got to be able to speak because then in that way they can in fact repair themselves.

16:47Davina McCall:Any woman that has been raped using these drugs that make you completely black out will be so grateful to you for explaining publicly what that is like. So thank you. You have done a very brave thing. I would like to come back to you talking about to the lawyers and to in the court about not knowing anything that happened to you. And how insulting it is when you've been through something like that for people to not believe you. What was it like to have people not believe you?

17:37Thank you.