Shock: Roman Polanski Victim’s Book: Unpublished Pictures, Graphic Details of Rape
I am surprised. For over a decade. Samantha Gailey Geimer has publicly supported director Roman Polanski and said that his rape of her, at age 13, was behind her. But in a book she’s publishing today, Geimer describes in detail the rape in 1977. The book also includes the photographs, never seen before, that Polanski took of her that day. The photos are placed in the book but not described until the Afterword, written by Geimer’s lawyer of 35 years, Lawrence Silver.
The photos illustrate the chapter, which I didn’t expect, in which Geimer responds the graphic details of what went on. Geimer says Polanski plied her with pills and Champagne. She worried that she would suffer the same fate as Karen Ann Quinlan. “What if I become the Coma Girl?” she thought.
There are three photos–two of them show Geimer looking woozy and stoned. In one she’s in a hot tub, her eyes shut. In the other, she’s looking back over her shoulder, arms crossed, on a window sill. The third is the sharpest– wearing a sexy dress, posing on a kitchen counter.
Polanski and Geimer, now high on Quaaludes, get into the hot tub. She writes: “It’s just me and him in the water and the steam and the bubbles. Then everything hits at once: the steam, the heat, the alcohol, the pill, and the panic. Have you ever been touched in a way that made you want to jump right out of your skin? This man had a reputation as a great lover. The problem is, he was not my great lover. I could have been any girl— as long as I was female, and as long as I was young. My chest tightens.”
I can’t reproduce the pictures here. and I can’t quote much more of the chapter– not just for copyright reasons, but because it would be too severe in this space.
Silver writes in his Afterword about the pictures in the book: “In the civil litigation, I demanded all photographs of Samantha. Polanski turned over the prints from that previously unseen first roll of film. But I believed there were more. What happened was this: In executing the search warrant, the police didn’t recognize the importance of a receipt/ claim check from Sav-On Drugs’
photograph department.
“Years later, I was told that Polanski gave his lawyer the receipt, and they secured the printed roll of film and negatives from the drug store. During the civil suit, his lawyer had to turn those photos over to me. These photographs, important both legally and historically, would likely have never been discovered if not for the civil suit.”
Geimer’s decision to publish now, and her details, aren’t exactly helpful to Polanski. She does acknowledge, however, that a lot of malfeasance went on with prosecuting him. Polanski served 42 days in jail. When he was released, it became clear that his original deal with the prosecution would be reneged on. That’s when he fled the United States.
Why would anyone blame a victim of rape for her reactions and coping mechanisms?
The fame and power of the abuser only makes it that much harder for her to have any chance of being heard, understood, and supported. That anyone should defend Polanski in any way is appalling.
His traumatic personal history is nothing exceptional in terms of the backgrounds of peodophilles-the vast majority of the time a child molester has been molested himself. That Polanski was traumatized in horrible ways is a terrible thing, yes-but it does not in ANY way whatsoever mitigate nor lessen the reality of his unspeakable acts.
He is the typical abuser-he believes he did nothing wrong. He BLAMES the 13 year old child.
If he were a homeless man on the street he would have been thrown in jail and roundly condemned as the monster he is-money, ‘talent’ and fame enabled him to leave the country and enjoy his life just fine elsewhere, complete with enablers all to ready to jump to his defense.
In Stockholm Syndrome the victim Identifies with their captor-it is a survival mechanism. This is how a victim may fall in love with their rapist etc. Until they have healed and have a safe enough space and place, and enough societal support, the victim will not be able to even feel their own rage. In one case, a person who endured three hours with a rapist said that ‘He was a nice person, I knew he didn’t want to do those things”. It took her more than a year to heal enough to come to a sense of the reality of the situation.
Roman Polanski’s victim was only 13 years old when she went through all of this! Her actions and reactions make perfect sense, speaking as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse myself, I understand that the mind does whatever is needed to protect us from knowledge and experiences which are overwhelmingly traumatic. It took courage for this book to be written.
And I have to say that Roman Polanski has not suffered any ‘lifetime’ of pain and suffering. He never even said that he was sorry. A few months in jail? He leaves the country and enjoys the support of enablers who just cannot understand that ‘one of their own’ (rich, famous, and talented) could actually be a monster.
This is really the dream of the predator-to be seen as the one who has been wounded and have the true victim blamed and criticized.
We see a similar set of dynamics in the Jackson family-the sad case of La Toya in which she came forward with the truth of her father having sexually abused her, and her belief that Michael had abused children-and a later recanting due to the extraordinary pressure from not just a family, but a powerful and rich Jackson p.r. machine.
Samantha Geimer has spent 36 years defending Roman Polanski, who drugged and raped her in 1977 when she was 13 and he was 43. According to court records, she was also raped at age eight by a neighbor, yet her family never pursued a criminal complaint against her assailant. Her star-struck mother told police she didn’t want film director Polanski to go to jail, and her lawyer spent decades pursuing a financial settlement, finally getting a six-figure payment out of Polanski after he fled America. Only Judge Lawrence Rittenband, in 1978, seemed to realize that Polanski’s deal of serving 42 days in a psychiatric lockup was insufficient punishment for such a horrendous act. Who else was standing up for this young victim? Perhaps if the now-adult Geimer had had three daughters, instead of three sons, she might better understand that justice has still not been served, despite how those in her inner circle convinced her otherwise. Her choices, including her new book with its recycled commentary, must break the spirits of child rape victims everywhere.
Remember, this is the man who you bragged about dining, drinking and spending time on a yacht with a few months back? You were so proud of yourself!
But what is new in this book? Not one thing, except for the pictures. Everybody has known this information, don’t pretend there is anything new in this book! Why are you shocked?!
So does that mean if you had known about what is written in this book, you would have refused the meeting?
And you have had the gall to write and talk about Mel Gibson in such a horrible way. You have no moral compass.
I know you will never post my e-mail, you don’t want to be criticized. But why do you ask for e-mails when you don’t print them?
Hollywood forgives him but still hates Mel Gibson? Unbelievable.
This disgusting crime is exactly what Michael Jackson was accused of, but most likely never did. Polanski, though, was never facing 20 years in prison. He was white you see, and people like you think that a little thing like a raped girl could be excused because he made “The Pianist”. Completely warped. The rage that met MJ never happened against Polanski, though he was obviously guilty. The girl was 13, – and you think she “supported” Polanski (because she wanted to move on), and you are “surprised” that somehow it seems she didn’t quite manage that? I’m certainly not.
Just for the record – Polanski never produced anything of a quality even close to what MJ did. And even if he had, nothing could excuse that rape. The man is a scumbag.