Just for Laughs founder Gilbert Rozon on Monday denied the allegations of two sisters who say he sexually assaulted them, one of whom is his former partner.
The disgraced former comedy mogul continued to reject the allegations against him at his civil trial for sexual assault in Montreal, as he has done for several days since his testimony began.
Rozon is being sued by nine women seeking nearly $14 million in damages over alleged sexual abuse.
On Monday in Superior Court, he denied sexually assaulting Sophie and Véronique Moreau, two sisters he met through his interactions with their late father, the famous comedian and impersonator Jean-Guy Moreau. Sophie is one of the plaintiffs in the case, while Véronique — Rozon’s former partner — has also testified against him.
Sophie Moreau says she was 15 years old when the first alleged incident took place in 1988. She claims Rozon cornered her at Place des Arts — a performing arts centre in Montreal — took her in his arms and asked to kiss her, which she refused.
“I have no memory of this,” Rozon said Monday. “I have never been attracted to her, perhaps she is attracted to me, I don’t know. I have never assaulted Ms. Sophie Moreau in any way.”
The following year, when Sophie was 16, Rozon allegedly touched her inappropriately on several occasions and told her twice that he intended to take her virginity. “I never did that. I was never attracted to her. I never made advances toward her,” he insisted.
The case of Véronique Moreau is more complex. She and Gilbert Rozon first began a relationship in 1989, when she was 17 and he was 34. This first relationship lasted a year and a half, during which the two saw each other mainly in secret because Rozon was married.
Their relationship resumed in 1997 and lasted until 2001. Rozon has stated on several occasions that Véronique was the love of his life. “Even today, I am still in love with this woman,” he testified on Monday.
Véronique has described Rozon as insatiable. She alleges he had sex with her twice a night every night, and that she regularly woke up to find him penetrating her without her consent. She claims he raped her 90 per cent of the time they had sex.
During his testimony, Rozon said that allegation is “stunning because it makes no sense.”
“Never in my life have I had sex with her against her will,” he insisted. He described his separation from her as “violent,” and said it was an episode that sent him into depression.
Rozon said it was “a complete surprise that the two of them (Sophie and Véronique Moreau) decided to join forces” against him and form what he called a “coalition.”
Later in the day, the Just for Laughs founder also rebuffed the allegations of Chloé Giroux-Lachance, who in 1992 accompanied her father-in-law, architect Luc Laporte, on a trip to Spain and France with Rozon and his then-wife, Danielle Roy. Giroux-Lachance is not a plaintiff in the case, but has testified against Rozon.
Giroux-Lachance alleges that Rozon appeared naked in the doorway of her room in the villa the group had rented in Spain. In France, she says she answered a knock on her hotel room door to find Rozon, who had come to wake her up. He allegedly entered her room and tried to assault her until she screamed, prompting his wife to come running, she says.
Rozon claimed Giroux-Lachance tried to seduce him after he rebuked her in Spain. “Chloé Giroux was very charming, but my wife wasn’t fooled by the manoeuvre. If I had been on my own, there’s no way I wouldn’t have succumbed,” he admitted. But he said Roy asked the young woman “to stop her little game.”
“It was uncomfortable,” he said.
Rozon said it’s unthinkable that he would have entered her hotel room in France and rubbed up against her, since his wife was nearby.
His cross-examination by the plaintiffs’ lawyers is scheduled to begin on Wednesday morning.
The civil lawsuit is the latest in a winding legal battle that began as a class action but was converted into individual suits after a 2020 Quebec Court of Appeal ruling. The civil case has heard from dozens of witnesses, including the nine complainants and seven other women who all claimed to have suffered sexual abuse by Rozon.
Rozon says he had consensual relations with three of the nine women, and denies the other allegations against him.
In 2020, a Quebec court judge found Rozon not guilty of rape and indecent assault connected to events alleged to have taken place in 1980 involving Annick Charette, who obtained a court order to make her identity public.