A French actress accused director Roman Polanski on Friday of raping her at a ski chalet in Gstaad, Switzerland, in 1975.
Valentine Monnier told Le Parisien that the director violently raped her when she was 18 years old. The publication also spoke with several people who offered corroboration, saying she had told them of the incident shortly afterward.
Monnier said she was moved to speak out now due to the release of Polanski's latest film, "J'Accuse" ("An Officer and a Spy"), which hits theaters in France next week.
"Rape is a time bomb," she told the publication. "The memory does not fade. It becomes a ghost and it follows you, and it changes you insidiously."
Monnier told Le Parisien that she barely knew of Polanski when she agreed to go skiing at his chalet in the winter of 1975. After dinner one evening, she said Polanski called her upstairs. "Life had not trained me to be suspicious," she told the paper. When she got upstairs, she said Polanski was naked. He attacked her, hit her and ripped off her clothes, before raping her, she claims.