Gisele Pelicot has revealed the heart-wrenching questions she has for her husband after he 'destroyed their family' with his monstrous sexual assaults on her.
The mother-of-three appeared on ITV's Lorraine on Tuesday, to open up about her story that made headlines around the world ahead of the release of her book, A Hymn To Life: Shame Has To Change Sides.
The book will feature Gisele, 73, opening up on waiving her right to anonymity ahead of her husband's trial for secretly drugging and raping her for nearly a decade, and inviting strangers into their home to abuse her.
Dominique Pelicot, who Gisele had been married to for 50 years, was caught filming up women's skirts in a local supermarket in France, and arrested in 2020.
Police later discovered that he had been abusing his wife, and recruited more than fifty other men - before he was sentenced to 20 years behind bars.
Sitting down with Lorraine Kelly on her self-titled ITV show, Gisele admitted that she's been left with 'questions' for her husband, and insisted she 'needs to meet up with him face to face' and get him 'to explain why' he abused her.
Gisele Pelicot has revealed the heart-wrenching questions she has for her husband after he 'destroyed their family' with his monstrous sexual assaults on her
The mother-of-three appeared on ITV's Lorraine on Tuesday, to open up about her story that made headlines around the world ahead of the release of her book, A Hymn To Life
She said: 'I wasn't able to speak to him throughout the trial. I never got answers.
'I don't know why he betrayed us, I don't know why he lied to us, I don't know why he caused so much harm.
'I do need to meet up with him and to face him. Face to face, and look at him in his eyes and [for him] to explain to me why he did that and give me answers for the photographs he took of his daughter, of his daughters in law...
'Of course I want answers, but I don't know whether he'll actually give me the authority to go and see him, but I do hope to be able to meet him because it's something I need in order to rebuild myself.'
Asked how her relationship with her children is now, Gisele continued: 'This kind of drama is not going to gather family together...
'We are all trying to rebuild ourselves in our own way, it needs time to heal... but we have made contact with each other.
'I got a message this morning [from my daughter] telling me she loved me; we really adored each other and when all of this suddenly happened, we had to deal with the suffering.
'I felt completely powerless as far as my children were concerned because I couldn't collapse. I had to show that I was even stronger and be able to protect them.
The book will feature Gisele, 73, opening up on waiving her right to anonymity ahead of her husband's trial for secretly drugging and raping her for nearly a decade
Asked how her relationship with her children is now, Gisele continued: 'This kind of drama is not going to gather family together...'
'We weren't necessarily understanding each other, but today, we are really on the right path.'
Looking back on her relationship with Pelicot, Gisele continued: 'I needed to think and feel that the 50 years spent with Mr Pelicot hadn't just been a lie to carry on living, otherwise I would've died.
'Of course you can't forget what he made me live through and betray us, and he destroyed my family and we were all trying to rebuild ourself.'
During her abuse, Gisele was drugged by her husband and suffered blackouts and distressing health symptoms that saw Mr Pelicot accompany her to the doctors, despite knowing the reason behind her struggle.
Gisele continued: 'I realised to what extent he was able to manipulate me because I had these medical problems - and he always came with me - how could I envisage that this man could manipulate me to that extent and lie to me to that extent.
'It was very difficult for me to recognise that.'
Addressing waiving her anonymity, Gisele added: 'When you're a victim of sexual violence, you generally have a tendency to isolate yourself, and live through an enormous amount of solitude, and you feel shame.
'And it took me three years before making that decision, because it's complicated to expose yourself to everybody I knew, and be looked at by those fifty one individuals but I wasn't only doing it for myself, I was doing it for those women that hadn't dared do it.'
During her abuse, Gisele was drugged by her husband and suffered blackouts and distressing health symptoms
Addressing waiving her anonymity, Gisele added: 'I've never regretting that decision, ever'
'And once I made that decision, I called my lawyers and they prepared me because of course we knew they were going to show those videos in court and I was somebody who tried to hide myself.
'I had that strength to say "you've got to stop all that" and denounce all these rapes, and I've never regretted that decision. Ever.
'I received thousands of letters, especially from the United Kingdom, and it really gave me incredible strength and I could see that this kind of sexual violence was universal...and those letters really overwhelmed me.
'[I framed] the one from Queen Camilla, and when I got that letter I was really touched and I realised that there were no borders, that there were no limits.'
'It affects all social classes; everybody is affected by sexual violence.'
Offering her advice to other survivors of sexual abuse, Gisele said: 'Don't isolate yourself because I know the kind of solitude you can live through.
'I never would have envisaged to have the strength to do this - but you do have the strength in yourself.
'Of course during the trial they tried to humiliate me; but those [abusers] should be ashamed... victims can hold their heads high.'
Dominique Pelicot, who Gisele had been married to for 50 years, was caught filming up women's skirts in a local supermarket in France , and arrested in 2020
It comes after Gisele bravely described the moment police officers showed her footage of her being raped by strangers while unconscious in her new book
'Today, I am a woman who is peaceful, who is serene, and I'm hoping to take advantage of my final years and really enjoy them and savour life.'
It comes after Gisele bravely described the moment police officers showed her footage of her being raped by strangers while unconscious in her new book.
In extracts published by French newspaper Le Monde, Ms Pelicot writes about how her then-husband had been summoned by police for questioning after a supermarket security guard caught him secretly taking videos up women's skirts.
Ms Pelicot accompanied him and was completely unprepared for the bombshell delivered by the officer, Laurent Perret.
Gradually, and with care, he explained how the man she regarded as a loving husband had, in fact, made her the unwitting victim of his perversions.
'I am going to show you photos and videos that are not going to please you,' the officer said, she recounts in the book.
The first showed a man raping a woman who had been lying on her side and dressed up in a suspender belt. 'That’s you in this photo,' the officer said.
He then showed her another photo, and another after that -- drawn from a collection of images that Dominique took of his wife over the years when he regularly knocked her unconscious by lacing her food and drink with drugs, so strangers he invited to their home could assault her while he filmed.
Ms Pelicot couldn't believe that the inert woman in the photos was her.
‘I didn’t recognise the individuals. Nor this woman. Her cheek was so flabby. Her mouth so limp. She was a rag doll,’ she writes in her book.
‘My brain stopped working in the office of Deputy Police Sergeant Perret.’
The shocking case and her courage in demanding that it be tried in open court spurred a national reckoning about the blight of rape culture. The harrowing trial ended in December 2024 with guilty verdicts for all 51 defendants.
In her book, Ms Pelicot also revealed how her partner, Jean-Loup, whom she met in the summer of 2023, became her pillar of strength as the trial neared.
She writes in the memoir how Jean-Loup printed the 400-page indictment her lawyers wanted her to read so she would not have to read it on a screen.
Gisele Pelicot describes moment police showed her footage of her being raped by strangers
She also describes how, in reading all of the horrific details of what she endured, she became ready to face the courtroom due to her confidence in her relationship with Jean-Loup as well as her age.
Dominique Pelicot and 50 other men were convicted of rapes and sexual assaults over a period of nearly a decade. Another man was convicted of drugging and raping his own wife with Dominique Pelicot's help.
Her ex-husband, found guilty on all charges, was given the maximum possible sentence of 20 years in prison.
The sentences ranged from three to 15 years imprisonment for the other convicted men. Only one of them subsequently appealed and saw his sentence for rape increased from nine to ten years' imprisonment.