Gerard Depardieu Was A Grave Robber And 'A Rent Boy'

Carousing French acting legend Gerard Depardieu has revealed that he stole jewellery from corpses in graves and also robbed clients during his time as a rent boy.

The 65-year-old actor has made the amazing claims in his new autobiography, ‘Sa S’est Fait Comme Ça’ – or ‘That’s the Way it Was’.

Growing up as one of five children in a poor family in Châteauroux, he writes that he would wander the streets from a young age, and soon realised that gay men found him attractive, and would often ask for sex.

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“I’ve known since I was very young that I please homosexuals… I would ask them for money,” he said.

At 16, he served three weeks in prison for stealing a car, and then on moving to Paris, he embarked on further criminal behaviour, adding: “At 20, the thug in me was alive and kicking.

“I would rip some of them off. I would beat up some bloke and leave with all his money.”

He also admits that he had occasionally helped another man dig up newly buried bodies at a cemetery and take jewellery and shoes from them, and picked the pockets of anti-government protesters during the 1968 protests.

His life turned around when he was spotted by theatre talent spotter, who paid for his to study drama.

Depardieu also writes with searing honesty about how his mother often told him about how she had attempted to abort him.

“I survived all the violence that my poor mother inflicted on herself with knitting needles and things,” he writes.

“The third child that she didn’t want, was me, Gérard. I survived.”

The actor, who became best known for his roles in movies like ‘Cyrano De Bergerac’ and ‘Green Card’ with Andie MaDowell, has long been known for his colossal capacity for alcohol.

In the book he talks of his legendary 14 bottles of wine in a day intake, often beginning with champagne.

He puts his weakness for booze down to his phobias.

“I’m obsessed with the racket in my body, the beating of my heart, the gurgling of my intestines, my joints cracking,” he says.

“It’s become a phobia to the point that if I’m alone in a hotel I must drink so as not to hear it, so as not to go mad from it. I can’t get to sleep unless I am dead drunk.”

Recently the actor has struck up a friendship with Vladimir Putin, who has granted him Russian citizenship, and writes that the pair have much in common.

“We could have both become hoodlums. I think he immediately liked my hooligan side… the fact that I had occasionally been picked up off the pavement dead drunk,” he writes.

“Like with me, nobody would have betted a penny on him when he was 15.”

Image credits: Rex Features

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