In a powerful Instagram post on Thursday, December 11, 2025, television presenter and former Miss France Laury Thilleman addressed a years-old video clip showing comedian Ary Abittan forcibly kissing her on a live TV set. The resurfaced footage has sparked renewed controversy amid a national debate on sexual violence.
A Public Reckoning
“I am rediscovering these images 14 years later… The trauma remains intact,” Thilleman wrote. The video, from the TF1 show “Les Enfants de la télé,” shows Abittan grabbing Thilleman’s face and kissing her as she visibly attempts to push him away. Other guests on the set are seen laughing.
Thilleman, now 34, was 20 at the time. She described feeling humiliated and ashamed. “At the time I said nothing, I did nothing. Not out of fear, but out of shame… to keep up appearances, I tried to laugh it off like many around the table, but I did not consent.”
Context of a National Controversy
The video recirculated widely following recent remarks by France’s First Lady, Brigitte Macron, who used a vulgar insult to describe feminist activists who interrupted an Ary Abittan performance in protest. Thilleman’s statement is seen as a direct response to this climate, giving voice to an experience she felt compelled to silence years ago.
“So, in the name of all those who have not been able to make their voices heard, I wish to make mine heard,” she concluded.
Legal Framework and Past Allegations
French law defines a sexual assault as imposing a sexual act on a person through violence, constraint, threat, or surprise, punishable by up to five years in prison and a €75,000 fine. Abittan was accused of rape in 2021, placed under judicial supervision, and later granted a dismissal of the case in 2024, which was upheld on appeal. His public performances since returning to the stage have been regularly protested.
By speaking out, Laury Thilleman has shifted the focus from political soundbites back to the lasting impact of non-consensual acts, challenging a culture that has often dismissed them as mere spectacle.
