Gisèle Pelicot, the French girl who turned a world image of braveness when she publicly stepped ahead to testify towards her ex-husband and dozens of different males in a mass rape trial, instructed “CBS Sunday Morning” that she believes her story “may very well be helpful to others.”
That is why she’s opening up about her story in a memoir, “A Hymn to Life: Disgrace Has to Change Sides.” She stated she’s talking on to those that would possibly ask, “How may this girl undergo what she went via and nonetheless be standing?”
CBS Information 
In her first U.S. broadcast interview, airing on “CBS Sunday Morning” February 15, Pelicot instructed correspondent Seth Doane that she “was once a really discreet girl.”
Pelicot waived her proper to anonymity and insisted court docket proceedings be made public through the 4-month trial towards her ex-husband, Dominique Pelicot, and 51 different males accused of raping her over the course of almost a decade at his invitation. All the lads have been discovered responsible, and Dominique was sentenced to the utmost of 20 years.
Within the memoir, Pelicot recounts the shock and horror of discovering that, for years, her then- husband had been drugging her and recruiting different males to assault her of their dwelling.
“I by no means imagined that I used to be dwelling with a person who was drugging his spouse in his own residence. It was not possible,” she instructed Doane.
Pelicot had suffered unexplained well being issues, and searching again, she says there have been different indicators one thing was incorrect, recalling a number of unsettling incidents when her drinks tasted unusual — at instances even undrinkable — “as if mint had been put in my glass.” She additionally recollects her husband getting ready their potatoes individually. However she by no means imagined her husband was lacing them.
“How are you going to think about that your husband is drugging you? It is unthinkable — not possible. The truth is, I used to be manipulated for about ten years. As a result of he was wanting me within the eyes each day whereas understanding he was poisoning me. However I by no means noticed that. I noticed a sort, caring man,” she stated.
Watch extra of Seth Doane’s interview with Gisèle Pelicot this weekend on “CBS Sunday Morning.” Pelicot’s memoir, “A Hymn to Life,” will probably be printed subsequent week by Penguin Press.
