Aged 18 when the scandal broke β and just 17 at the time of the incident β Dehar seemed destined to be defined for life by the sordid story. But she refused to let it define her.
For young woman, driven to thoughts of suicide, it was a question of survival. Today, the year-old model, lingerie designer and muse to the late couturier Karl Lagerfeld is celebrating her first film role and has found herself compared to a young Brigitte Bardot.
In Une Fille Facile An Easy Girl , released in France on Wednesday, Dehar plays the liberated Sofia, who sleeps with rich men who buy her gifts; it is set in a steamy summer in the south of France, featuring sun, sea, sand and sex, with luxury yachts and jewels thrown in. By the time she was 16, uninterested in boys her own age, she made a decision, she says, to sleep with older men for money. By night, she frequented high-class clubs in Paris, returning home in the early hours to change for school.
But she was never aggressive with me. Dehar says the affair still haunts her. I felt as if I was a monster that had to be hidden. And I knew that, in society, that kind of woman is seen as diabolical. Instead of being ostracised, however, Dehar received modelling offers, inspired the artists Pierre et Gilles to portray her as Marianne, the feminine symbol of the French state, and was photographed by Lagerfeld, who supported a lingerie collection she launched.
The film has highlighted again the contrary response in France to MeToo. This article is more than 5 years old. At 17, Zahia Dehar was caught up in a football sex scandal. Now her first film is the talk of Paris. View image in fullscreen. Reuse this content. Most viewed.
