Targeted by an investigation for domestic violence, Stéphane Plaza was still being heard in the middle of the evening on Tuesday in police custody, according to franceinfo. Three former companions accuse him of physical and psychological violence.
Something new in the Stéphane Plaza affair. Summoned by the police at the start of the afternoon this Tuesday March 12 as indicated by BFMTV, the M6 host was on Tuesday, in the middle of the evening, still heard under police custody, Franceinfo revealed at the end evening. A status which seems to confer a certain credence to the testimonies of the complainants, since police custody is by definition "a custodial measure taken during a judicial investigation against a person suspected of having committed an offense" , according to the Public Service site, even if the host remains presumed innocent at this stage.
First heard in a free hearing, Stéphane Plaza was therefore placed in police custody as part of the preliminary investigation into domestic violence to which he is the subject, according to Le Parisien. Before the investigators, the very media real estate agent is asked to explain the accusations which have been aimed at him for several months. Three women, all former companions of Stéphane Plaza, have accused the host of psychological and/or physical violence and denounce facts which allegedly took place during their respective relationships with the small screen star. All of them had testified to Médiapart last September, and two of them had sent a letter to the Paris prosecutor's office and filed a complaint leading to the opening of an investigation.
Stéphane Plaza, for his part, denounces “defamatory and insulting accusations” and has filed “a criminal complaint for harassment and cyberharassment”. The man who denies the violence and the behavior with which he is accused wrote before this Tuesday March 12 on Instagram, before his summons by the police: “For the first time, I will finally be able to express myself”. Without explicitly mentioning his hearing or the investigation, he felt that "this fleeting moment will soon be nothing more than a distant memory."
Stéphane Plaza is accused by three former partners of acts of violence in a Mediapart article published Thursday, September 21. They say they suffered “verbal and psychological violence (humiliation, denigration, threats)” from the real estate agent and two of them describe “physical attacks.” They further claimed to the investigative newspaper that they had maintained a relationship with the host without knowing that he was seeing other people, accusing him of "exerting manipulation, pressure and mistreatment" to "make several relationships coexist serious at the same time.
Stéphane Plaza would have refused to respond to requests from Mediapart on these various matters. The host's lawyer, Me Hélène Plumet, denounced "totally extrapolated, even false allegations" and "fanciful accusations". She also announced that Stéphane Plaza had filed a complaint against them last June for harassment and cyberharassment.
Among the testimonies revealed by Mediapart against the fifty-year-old host and real estate agent, one of his ex-partners, who allegedly provided written testimony to a bailiff in May 2022, accuses him of having “returned with violence” several fingers during a fit of fury. “Three of my fingers were hanging off, they quickly turned purple and swollen,” she assures. She also claims to have been “punched in the shoulder”. Another of his former partners, who would have filed a handrail in September 2022, claims that he would have inflicted “bites” on her. Threats are also mentioned in this Mediapart article.
Stéphane Plaza's lawyer assures Mediapart that these testimonies come from "three women he dated and who, finally rejected, joined forces against him to harm him by all means". His lawyer also tells Mediapart that a complaint for harassment and cyberstalking was filed against one of the accusers in June 2023: "The facts are sufficiently serious for Mr. Plaza to fear for his life, as he indicated to the district Attorney". A prosecution was also reportedly filed against one of the accusers in October 2021.
In a press release, Stéphane Plaza's counsel denounced "defamatory and insulting accusations". “Mediapart acted as relay for three women who undermine the dignity” of Stéphane Plaza, “thus making themselves complicit in the public denigration against the latter, while they are the subject of a criminal complaint that he filed [against them] for harassment and cyberharassment,” we can still read.
The M6 group, for its part, reacted to the information late in the evening, Thursday September 21. On X (formerly Twitter), he indicated that he had an interview with Stéphane Plaza after the information appeared in the press. Saying that it was "particularly attached to the values of respect for people and guarantor of its code of ethics and professional conduct", the M6 group announced that it was taking "note of Stéphane Plaza's formal challenge to the facts with which he is accused and the legal challenges that 'he committed'.
