Johnny Depp's collaborator, French director Maiwenn sued for assaulting journalist

French actor-director Maiwenn, whose latest film Jeanne du Barry starring Johnny Depp is set to premiere at Cannes Film Festival, is sued by the editor-in-chief of Mediapart magazine, Edwy Plenel.

Plenel filed a police complaint on March 7, accusing Maiween of aggression. Variety has confirmed the filing with the Paris prosecutor’s office following local news reports. 

In the complaint, Plenel alleges that he was assaulted by Maiwenn in late February while he was eating at a restaurant in the posh seventh arrondissement of Paris.

According to AFP, which quoted the police complaint, Maiwenn, who was sitting alone by at a nearby table, allegedly came came closer to Plenel's table and grabbed him by the hair before spitting in his face without uttering a word, then rushed out of the restaurant, leaving him "traumatized by the incident." 

The police report which was filed a month ago leaked on Friday, only a day after the Cannes Film Festival announced that Maiwenn’s movie had been chosen to open its 76th edition.

Though Mediapart hasn’t ever investigated Maiwenn, it published a series of bombshell stories about her ex-husband Luc Besson, with whom she shares a daughter, Shanna Besson. 

Mediapart also published the first testimony of Belgian-Dutch actor Sand Van Roy, who had accused Besson of sexual assault (the case was eventually dropped), and the testimony of French actor Adele Haenel accusing the director Christophe Ruggia of sexual harassment when she was a minor.

Maiwenn, who has admitted in her previous interviews that she didn’t embrace the #MeToo movement, cast Depp to play French king Louis XV in Jeanne du Barry amid his legal battle against his ex-wife Amber Heard.