French actor Gérard Depardieu denied allegations against him of rape and sexual assault in an open letter published over the weekend. “I can no longer allow what I hear, what I have read about myself for several months,” the 74-year-old wrote in Le Figaro on Sunday. “I thought I didn’t care, but no, actually no. This all gets to me. Worse still, it wipes me out.” The actor was placed under investigation two years ago over an allegation that he raped actress Charlotte Arnould in his home in 2018, and subsequent allegations of sexually inappropriate behavior have since been made against him by over a dozen women. “I finally want to tell you my truth. I have never, ever abused a woman,” Depardieu wrote in the letter, adding that: “Hurting a woman would be like kicking my own mother in the stomach.” Arnould’s lawyer, Carine Durrieu-Diebolt, said in a French radio interview on Monday she was “shocked and scandalized” by his words.