Featured Image Credit: Christophe SIMON / AFP via Getty Images
Topics: France, Gisele Pelicot, True crime
William Morgan
Topics: France, Gisele Pelicot, True crime
Warning: This article contains discussion of sexual assault and rape which some readers may find distressing.
Survivor Gisèle Pelicot has spoken publicly about her strained relationship with her daughter, which faltered after her husband and 50 other men were convicted of raping her while she was drugged.
Over a year after her dozens of abusers were jailed in a groundbreaking trial in France, Madame Pelicot has returned to the public eye in a series of interviews with international publications, laying bare the damage it has done to herself and her family.
That includes her relationship with daughter Caroline Darian, who like Gisèle found out that there were photos of herself unconscious and in a state of undress in her father's posession, which police only discovered after arresting him for an upskirting offence.
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But during the sentencing of her mother's rapists, Darian told the court that she was 'a forgotten victim in this case,' and later pressed charges against her father as well, telling the BBC: "I know that he drugged me, probably for sexual abuse. But I don't have any evidence."
Yet Pelicot has denied her daughter's claims, with Darian claiming in late 2025 that her mother never believed her and that the pair had stopped talking.
In a previous interview with the Telegraph, Darian said: "My mother let go of my hand in that courtroom. She abandoned me.
"For four years I accompanied my mum everywhere. I supported her without ever judging her. And it wasn’t always easy because she didn’t want to hear what I was telling her."
The revelation of this schism at the heart of a family already torn asunder by one man's evil crimes surprised many, as two of Dominique Pelicot's victims appeared to be in bitter disagreement.
But in a number of interviews given in the past few weeks ahead of the publication of her memoir, 73-year-old Gisèle has shared how she is taking steps to reconcile with her daughter after the trial blew their relationship apart.
Speaking to the New Yorker, the French feminist icon shared how things had changed in recent months. “I think we both needed to distance ourselves to perhaps heal in different ways,” she shared.
The mom and daughter have also started speaking to each other on the phone every day, after taking baby steps with a call over Christmas and another on Darian's birthday.
While her children, according to the publication, have not read their mother's memoir yet, it does contain a tentative acknowledgment of Darian's claims, with her mother describing the pictures her husband took as having an 'unbearable incestuous gaze.'
The book also acknowledges that, without any proof of her assault, this forced Darian to live without knowing what Dominique might have done.
She also admitted that her mental state while going through the trial had made her defensive, saying 'I wanted to help her now, but I didn’t know what to do or how to reach her.'
Instead, she writes: “I embraced silence, she demanded noise.”
If you've been affected by any of the issues in this article, you can contact The National Sexual Assault Hotline on 800.656.HOPE (4673), available 24/7. Or you can chat online via online.rainn.org