For years, her husband was adding sedatives to her evening cup of tea. Now, with fellow survivor Amanda Stanhope, she is lifting the lid on a hidden and diabolical crime

In September 2024, Amanda Stanhope watched, transfixed, from her home in Manchester, as the Gisèle Pelicot case made headlines around the world.

“Gisèle’s case was the first time I knew of somebody else who had been raped while they were drugged,” says Stanhope. “I remember feeling: ‘Thank God I’m not alone. There’s one other person in the world that this has happened to.’” Stanhope’s former partner, David Rogerson, was under investigation at the time for raping her while she slept, and filming the abuse. Pelicot’s husband, Dominique, would end up being convicted for drug-facilitated rape and sexual assault (DFSA), along with 50 strangers he had recruited online to abuse his wife.

French campaigner was drugged by her ex-husband and sexually abused by dozens of men over almost a decade

Gisèle Pelicot has described the moment she fell in love and was able to trust again after her rape ordeal orchestrated by her former husband in France.

Pelicot, 73, waived her right to anonymity during the trial of Dominique Pelicot, who was jailed for 20 years in 2024 for drugging and raping her and allowing other men to sexually assault her while she was unconscious, over almost a decade.

Speaking at the Hay festival in Wales on Saturday, she said she never thought she could trust a man again before meeting her partner, Jean-Loup Agopian.

The campaigner said: “It’s something that I didn’t think could happen, especially at my age, first of all, I didn’t really want to fall in love, but life decided otherwise.

“We met, our trajectories crossed at one moment and I met this young man of 73… You see, you can fall in love at any age, it happened to me, it can happen to you, I’m convinced of it.

“I didn’t think that I’d be able to trust a man, but it’s what happened to me, so you see that everything can be allowed in life, you must never despair.”

Pelicot appeared at the festival to discuss her memoir A Hymn to Life and was interviewed on stage by Lady Kennedy.

She said that “society has got to wake up” on the issue of violence against women, and that it’s an “appalling evil that touches all borders”.

The case against her former husband shocked the world, while her response inspired awe. As she publishes a memoir, she discusses chemical submission, the abuse hidden within her apparently perfect marriage – and why she decided to go public

At Gisèle Pelicot’s new home on Île de Ré off France’s Atlantic coast, she likes to take bracing walks along the beach in all weathers, play classical music loud, eat nice chocolate and, as a gift to each new morning, always set the table for breakfast the night before. “It’s my way of putting myself in a good mood when I wake up: the cups are out already, I just need to put the kettle on,” she says.

But one of her most treasured possessions is a box of letters she keeps on her desk. The envelopes from across the world – some sent on a prayer, addressed only with her name and the village in Provence where she once lived – piled up at the courthouse in Avignon in southern France in late 2024, when she became famous worldwide as a symbol of courage for waiving her right to anonymity in the trial of her ex-husband and dozens of men he had invited to rape her while she was drugged unconscious.

Pelicot says she wants to look Dominique Pelicot ‘straight in the eye’ over potential abuse of daughter and case of estate agent who was raped and murdered in 1991

Gisèle Pelicot has said she needs to visit prison to look her abusive ex-husband “straight in the eye” after his conviction for drugging her and inviting dozens of men to rape her in a case that shocked France and the rest of the world.

Pelicot, 73, said she needed “answers” from Dominique Pelicot over the potential abuse of their daughter and the case of an estate agent who was raped and murdered in 1991, which he is under investigation for.

Pelicot says shame is ‘a double sentence’ and describes shock of seeing herself like ‘a rag doll’ in police footage

Gisèle Pelicot, who became a global symbol of courage during the trial of her ex-husband and the dozens of men who raped her while she was unconscious, has called on victims to never be ashamed.

In her first TV interview, on the channel France 5, Pelicot said: “Shame sticks to you, it sticks to your skin. And that shame is a double sentence, it’s a suffering you inflict on yourself.”