PARIS — French movie star Gerard Depardieu admitted in court on Tuesday that he had grabbed by the hips a woman who has accused him of sexual assault, but denied it was assault, attributing any crude comments he had made to being in a bad mood.

The plaintiff, Amelie K, a set decorator, spoke in court after Mr. Depardieu, and said the actor had groped her all over her body as he trapped her between his legs and made explicit sexual comments, terrifying her while they were on a film set in 2021.

“He grabbed me and groped me in the front of my body, the back, all around. He trapped me with his legs,” she told the court. “He touched everything, including my breasts,” she said. “I was terrified, he was laughing.”

A towering figure of French cinema, Mr. Depardieu, 76, has faced a growing number of sexual assault allegations in recent years.

Mr. Depardieu’s trial is the highest-profile #MeToo case in the media industry to come before the courts in France. He has denied wrongdoing, and this is the first case over which he is standing trial.

“Yes, I confirm I grabbed her by the hips to tell her not very nice things, but not to grope her,” Mr. Depardieu said.

Earlier, he had said he had grabbed Amelie K to avoid slipping, as he was tired and upset.

After Amelie K’s lawyer said Mr. Depardieu had changed his version of events yet again, as he had thus far denied touching her, the actor said: “If you say so.”

The actor told the court he was not at ease with how society was evolving. “I think my time is over,” he said.

If found guilty, Mr. Depardieu could face a sentence of up to five years in jail and a €75,000 ($81,000) fine.

DRAMA
The second day of the trial was marked by high drama, with Mr. Depardieu’s lawyer interrupting and screaming at Amelie K’s lawyer, while Mr. Depardieu heatedly denounced the “hysteria” of some women.

Often wandering off topic, Mr. Depardieu said he had accused Amelie K of doing her job badly, shocking her, and that any crude comments he made were related to her work.

Amelie K repudiated this, saying Mr. Depardieu had not criticized her work but had made repeated, crude, sexual comments and assaulted her.

She said someone — she did not know who — eventually stepped in, freeing her from his grasp and pulling her away.

Prosecutors have given a similar account of what they described as a sexual assault, witnessed by three people.

They said the alleged assaults against Amelie K and another woman — their full identities were not revealed — took place during the 2021 filming of Les Volets Verts (The Green Shutters).

The second woman was groped by Mr. Depardieu on set and in the street, prosecutors said.

Mr. Depardieu’s lawyer Jeremie Assous told reporters on Monday the accusations were false and based on lies. In court, he accused investigators of bias and wanting to bring Mr. Depardieu down.

The accusations against Mr. Depardieu and his trial, have divided French actors, with some supporting him and expected to speak at the trial, and others backing the plaintiffs.

At the time of the alleged assaults on the set of Les Volets Verts, Mr. Depardieu was already under investigation over a rape allegation by actress Charlotte Arnould, who was present in court this week to follow the proceedings.

The Paris prosecutor’s office last year said Mr. Depardieu should face trial over Ms. Arnould’s complaint. Mr. Depardieu has denied any wrongdoing. It is now up to an investigative judge to say if there will be a trial over those allegations. — Reuters

LONDON — Ticketmaster may have misled music fans into paying more for tickets than they had planned last year to see British band Oasis, the UK’s competition watchdog said on Tuesday, urging the company to change how it labels tickets and informs customers.

Thousands of fans waited for hours online to get their hands on highly coveted tickets for the band’s 2025 reunion shows, only to find prices had jumped by the time they got to the front of the queue.

“We’re concerned that Oasis fans didn’t get the information they needed or may have been misled into buying tickets they thought were better than they were,” said Hayley Fletcher, interim senior director of consumer protection at the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).

The watchdog said it was concerned that Ticketmaster may have breached consumer law. CMA does not currently have power to levy fines for breaching consumer laws, which are enforced through the court system.

A Ticketmaster statement said that it aimed to provide a “simple, transparent and consumer-friendly experience” and welcomed the CMA’s input.

The CMA launched an investigation into Ticketmaster in September to examine if it had engaged in “unfair commercial practices,” and if they were pressured to buy tickets within a short period of time.

The CMA originally said it was also looking at how dynamic pricing models — a form of surge pricing — may have been used, but Ticketmaster has said it did not use dynamic pricing models.

The outcry over the way the ticket sale process was managed became a hot political topic, spurring Prime Minister Keir Starmer to promise to get a grip on the wider issue of event tickets being sold at inflated prices.

The government has since announced proposals to cap resale prices and hold reselling websites more accountable.

The CMA issued an update on its findings on Tuesday outlining two main concerns.

One was that seats labeled as “platinum” were sold at a premium without consumers being made fully aware that they didn’t come with any extra benefits.

Another was insufficient information provided to buyers at the start of the queue on different ticket categories and their prices if cheaper tickets were sold out before their turn to buy.

The CMA said Ticketmaster had made some changes since the investigation began, but that more work was still needed.

“We now expect Ticketmaster to work with us to address these concerns so, in future, fans can make well-informed decisions when buying tickets,” the CMA’s Ms. Fletcher said. — Reuters