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And this story is trending on bbc.com. | :00:44. | :00:45. | |
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ahead of the sentencing of a controversial guru | :00:49. | :00:50. | |
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Now on BBC News, it's time for HARDtalk. | :01:00. | :01:15. | |
In the late 70s, Roman Polanski admitted to having unlawful sex | :01:16. | :01:22. | |
He spent 42 days in prison, and then fled the US | :01:23. | :01:29. | |
because he feared being given a longer sentence. | :01:30. | :01:32. | |
In the nearly 40 years since, much has been said and written | :01:33. | :01:35. | |
But we have hardly heard anything from the girl herself, | :01:36. | :01:39. | |
I have come to New York to hear her account of what happened, | :01:40. | :01:43. | |
Samantha Geimer, welcome to HARDtalk. | :01:44. | :02:06. | |
You have struggled to protect your privacy for nearly 40 years, | :02:07. | :02:10. | |
so why are you choosing to speak up now? | :02:11. | :02:16. | |
I just wanted to tell the story, the true story, my story, | :02:17. | :02:20. | |
on my own terms rather than as a reaction to whatever might | :02:21. | :02:23. | |
be bringing it up in my life, which happens from time to time. | :02:24. | :02:36. | |
So I thought it was time to, on my own terms, at my own time, | :02:37. | :02:40. | |
tell the truth and say the things I wanted to say. | :02:41. | :02:43. | |
Those who say, this is about making some money out of a story that has | :02:44. | :02:47. | |
gone quiet, what would you say to them? | :02:48. | :02:49. | |
It never goes quiet for very long for me, not that much, | :02:50. | :02:54. | |
You were 13, and the first time you met Roman Polanski, | :02:55. | :03:02. | |
He was looking to take some photographs of young girls. | :03:03. | :03:06. | |
He was looking for a model, and he was a friend | :03:07. | :03:09. | |
He approached you, and you went out with him one evening and he had | :03:10. | :03:17. | |
met your mother, and he took some photographs of you. | :03:18. | :03:21. | |
He came by the house, and met my mother to see | :03:22. | :03:24. | |
We did test shots a couple of weeks later, during the day, | :03:25. | :03:30. | |
What were you hoping would come from it? | :03:31. | :03:39. | |
I was hoping I would be in Vogue Paris, and it | :03:40. | :03:42. | |
would be my big shot at getting some parts and having an acting career. | :03:43. | :03:50. | |
You went out with him, and you write about it in your book. | :03:51. | :03:54. | |
You gradually took your clothes off while he took photos of you up | :03:55. | :03:57. | |
He asked me to change my shirt, and took photos while I was topless. | :03:58. | :04:10. | |
I let him do that, and I didn't tell my mother. | :04:11. | :04:13. | |
Then he gets back in contact, and he wants to take more. | :04:14. | :04:16. | |
I was a little uncomfortable, but I really wanted that opportunity | :04:17. | :04:21. | |
to be in Vogue Paris, so I went ahead with it. | :04:22. | :04:25. | |
You wrote about it, saying, whatever I did on that hill, | :04:26. | :04:28. | |
it might put me on the map, my family would be stoked. | :04:29. | :04:42. | |
So everyone will be happy that you are making it. | :04:43. | :04:45. | |
You went off with a friend as well, but she didn't stay. | :04:46. | :04:50. | |
He said we would be kind of late, and she couldn't stay late. | :04:51. | :04:55. | |
I didn't see it as a big deal or a problem. | :04:56. | :05:07. | |
And he ended up taking you up to Jack Nicholson's house? | :05:08. | :05:10. | |
I thought we would do photos until we lost the light and then | :05:11. | :05:17. | |
From the moment you arrive, he gave you champagne? | :05:18. | :05:21. | |
We had photographs, and there was a housekeeper | :05:22. | :05:23. | |
and they opened some champagne, and I was using it during the photos | :05:24. | :05:26. | |
He offered me that, and I took it, I don't know why. | :05:27. | :05:54. | |
Can you explain why you went along with a lot of the things | :05:55. | :05:57. | |
I thought I was working, it was a modelling job, | :05:58. | :06:06. | |
so I was there to model and do has he said and do it correctly. | :06:07. | :06:10. | |
I thought it was work, most of it was work. | :06:11. | :06:13. | |
The drinking was a lot of fun, since I was 13, almost 14, | :06:14. | :06:16. | |
When you are younger, having a glass of champagne is nice. | :06:17. | :06:26. | |
But I wasn't experienced enough to know that I had maybe | :06:27. | :06:29. | |
He says, he wrote in his autobiography, there is no doubt | :06:30. | :06:39. | |
about her experience and lack of inhibition. | :06:40. | :06:41. | |
I'm sure he would like to remember it that way, so that's OK. | :06:42. | :06:46. | |
I obviously had a lack of inhibition or wouldn't have | :06:47. | :06:48. | |
Was there a question of how much you allowed? | :06:49. | :07:03. | |
I thought I was mature but I was naive. | :07:04. | :07:11. | |
Maybe, I knew it was somehow inappropriate, but I didn't put it | :07:12. | :07:17. | |
together that it might go further, and something that might happen. | :07:18. | :07:20. | |
You have written about it in your book, that it went, | :07:21. | :07:28. | |
Yes, it was modelling, then he wanted to get | :07:29. | :07:40. | |
I realised it was wrong, I had been drinking and I had taken | :07:41. | :07:45. | |
that pill, so I was just confused and after that he was going | :07:46. | :07:49. | |
I was afraid, I was unprepared, I was surprised. | :07:50. | :08:04. | |
And that was because he was nervous about getting you pregnant? | :08:05. | :08:12. | |
That is what everyone seems to think so I will go with that. | :08:13. | :08:21. | |
I was scared and I didn't know how to stop it. | :08:22. | :08:32. | |
I knew what sex was, and I figured, this is what is happening. | :08:33. | :08:35. | |
I didn't know how to get out of it so I figured that | :08:36. | :08:39. | |
since it was going to happen, let's just hope it happens quickly | :08:40. | :08:42. | |
and will be done and I'll go home afterwards. | :08:43. | :08:48. | |
The other question that has been asked again and again | :08:49. | :08:52. | |
Why she couldn't see the warning signs. | :08:53. | :08:56. | |
Who would have thought he would do something so inappropriate? | :08:57. | :09:10. | |
There was nothing to indicate he would do that. | :09:11. | :09:12. | |
He was well-known, and you wouldn't expect that from someone | :09:13. | :09:15. | |
who would suffer those kind of consequences. | :09:16. | :09:17. | |
He was incredibly high-profile, so do you think there | :09:18. | :09:19. | |
was a presumption that somebody so famous wouldn't do | :09:20. | :09:22. | |
Trying to remember the 70s, was it more accepted do you think? | :09:23. | :09:43. | |
The various comments that people have made about the case. | :09:44. | :09:45. | |
Other directors, Howard Koch, for example. | :09:46. | :09:50. | |
"It is one of those situations, that he could find himself | :09:51. | :09:53. | |
You make the point that Brooke Shields had just posed nude | :09:54. | :10:13. | |
at age ten, and she had been a child prostitute at the age of ten | :10:14. | :10:17. | |
I was aware of Jodie Foster being in Taxi Driver. | :10:18. | :10:27. | |
It wasn't uncommon for young girls to be in sexualised parts. | :10:28. | :10:38. | |
So, for your mother, she knew you were there, | :10:39. | :10:40. | |
And told her everything was all right? | :10:41. | :10:44. | |
Yes, I thought everything was all right. | :10:45. | :10:46. | |
And in all that time, you have never been angry with her. | :10:47. | :10:53. | |
It seems the only time you angry with her was for letting | :10:54. | :10:57. | |
Yes, I was immature and I was angry that she called the police | :10:58. | :11:10. | |
because that really brought down a lot of difficult, | :11:11. | :11:12. | |
As a younger person I was angry, I wish she hadn't, because then it | :11:13. | :11:22. | |
would have just been over, and instead it went on for year. | :11:23. | :11:27. | |
It went on for a lot longer, didn't it? | :11:28. | :11:30. | |
You said of the subsequent process, if I had to choose between reliving | :11:31. | :11:34. | |
the rape or the Grand Jury testimony, I would choose the rape. | :11:35. | :11:41. | |
The Grand Jury, Everyone was then involved. | :11:42. | :11:47. | |
And that was just one day of weeks that I had to go through. | :11:48. | :11:54. | |
The effect on your family over the years. | :11:55. | :12:11. | |
Yes, I think it affected my family even more than it affected me. | :12:12. | :12:15. | |
It was quiet for quite a long time after that. | :12:16. | :12:18. | |
You did say then that later when you are asked about it, | :12:19. | :12:21. | |
if you had a daughter who was raped at 13, | :12:22. | :12:24. | |
you almost question whether you would call the police. | :12:25. | :12:26. | |
Probably, but I might think about that carefully | :12:27. | :12:29. | |
Because I wouldn't want to make it worse than just being raped. | :12:30. | :12:44. | |
When you look back, you talk about this sense of what people | :12:45. | :12:54. | |
If only he had hurt me worse, in more obvious ways, | :12:55. | :13:05. | |
It was strange and awful in a lot of ways. | :13:06. | :13:09. | |
Police, the hospital, police station. | :13:10. | :13:11. | |
The next day, the district attorney's office. | :13:12. | :13:13. | |
Then the fact that everyone was lying on top of that. | :13:14. | :13:18. | |
Then, trying to prove he did it, it was like, if there was more | :13:19. | :13:22. | |
proof, if I was more damaged, then we could prove I wasn't lying. | :13:23. | :13:25. | |
These were people who were on your side. | :13:26. | :13:40. | |
They are on my side, yet wanting to prove something bad | :13:41. | :13:47. | |
It was really confusing for me, I was only 14, and it was confusing | :13:48. | :14:00. | |
to have to go through all that, to be forced to do so many things. | :14:01. | :14:04. | |
That you were hurt, you just weren't hurt in the right way? | :14:05. | :14:12. | |
I was wondering why everyone was continuing to hurt me as some | :14:13. | :14:16. | |
kind of requirement for what I had already been through. | :14:17. | :14:19. | |
The phone rang off the hook, everyone was calling me a liar, | :14:20. | :14:33. | |
Some of the things that were coming at you, it was presumed that you had | :14:34. | :14:40. | |
It was presumed that I was lying, that I had asked for it, | :14:41. | :14:44. | |
Every awful thing you could presume was presumed about me and my family. | :14:45. | :14:55. | |
The judge said, what have we got here, a mother-daughter hooker team? | :14:56. | :14:58. | |
You also say that you weren't the kind of victim people wanted. | :14:59. | :15:05. | |
You didn't behave in the way people wanted. | :15:06. | :15:07. | |
At the time I was a really angry young girl. | :15:08. | :15:20. | |
I'm sure I wasn't behaving the way people wanted me to then. | :15:21. | :15:23. | |
But later, people want you to be interesting | :15:24. | :15:25. | |
They would like to exaggerate what happened to you to make | :15:26. | :15:29. | |
So, I don't co-operate with that because that is not who I am. | :15:30. | :15:34. | |
It is like a disappointment for everyone that I am fine | :15:35. | :15:36. | |
You have been critical of the victim culture and suggested that it does | :15:37. | :15:48. | |
In recent days, it is like that there is a whole little | :15:49. | :15:53. | |
entertainment industry built up around victims of crime | :15:54. | :15:57. | |
and they are just used for ratings or for selling copies and spit out. | :15:58. | :16:02. | |
I don't think that any of the people doing that really care about them | :16:03. | :16:06. | |
They are just helping themselves at the expense of someone who has | :16:07. | :16:11. | |
The victim themselves should not see it as sympathy. | :16:12. | :16:16. | |
I know from experience that people insisting that you be a victim | :16:17. | :16:25. | |
and put that on display for them and carry it out | :16:26. | :16:29. | |
As a result of your reluctance to continue the trial process, | :16:30. | :16:37. | |
As a result of this, the more serious charges are dropped | :16:38. | :16:46. | |
and he admits to unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor. | :16:47. | :16:53. | |
A deal is reached with the judge on sentencing that you are happy | :16:54. | :16:57. | |
The judge reneged on that deal and that is where the problem | :16:58. | :17:02. | |
The legal problems began with the judge. | :17:03. | :17:09. | |
And continued with the judge and remain the responsibility | :17:10. | :17:13. | |
of the judge because he did not stick to the deal. | :17:14. | :17:21. | |
He wanted to change it every time he thought that he was getting bad | :17:22. | :17:24. | |
press, which is not how our justice system is supposed to work. | :17:25. | :17:29. | |
As a result of his attempts to change it, that is what led | :17:30. | :17:32. | |
to Roman Polanski fleeing the country? | :17:33. | :17:34. | |
He was supposed to have probation and the judge was angry | :17:35. | :17:38. | |
because of a photo of him in Germany was published with a caption saying | :17:39. | :17:41. | |
He made him come back and gave him an illegal sentence of 90 days | :17:42. | :17:48. | |
They then let him out in 42 days and the judge was angry again. | :17:49. | :17:57. | |
The judge put him back in for an indeterminate amount | :17:58. | :18:01. | |
of time which can mean for up to 50 years and said, | :18:02. | :18:04. | |
"Come back in a few weeks and I will let you out | :18:05. | :18:08. | |
Which was on the judge's word which was good for nothing. | :18:09. | :18:17. | |
Do you sympathise with Roman Polanski? | :18:18. | :18:18. | |
That is not how you are supposed to be treated in court. | :18:19. | :18:21. | |
I understand and I was kind of glad he did. | :18:22. | :18:26. | |
It was nice that he was gone and it was over for a little while. | :18:27. | :18:35. | |
It was over for a little while and I wonder if you think | :18:36. | :18:38. | |
that it could have been resolved except for the judge? | :18:39. | :18:41. | |
It could have easily been resolved and should have been resolved | :18:42. | :18:44. | |
and the judge just made sure that did not happen | :18:45. | :18:47. | |
because he was concerned about himself and his own image | :18:48. | :18:50. | |
and he was really enjoying the publicity and really | :18:51. | :18:53. | |
I think he was disappointed that they weren't going to put me | :18:54. | :18:58. | |
on the stand at 14 to be cross-examined. | :18:59. | :19:04. | |
Do you now feel angrier with the judge? | :19:05. | :19:06. | |
If I had to pick, yes, I am not still angry | :19:07. | :19:12. | |
but I definitely feel that he bears the responsibility for the way | :19:13. | :19:16. | |
that this has worked out for all of us. | :19:17. | :19:23. | |
You say that you felt relieved when Roman Polanski left. | :19:24. | :19:26. | |
It was only a matter of time because in the years since then, | :19:27. | :19:34. | |
there have been legal manoeuvres from all sides and we have | :19:35. | :19:37. | |
this situation in 2009 when he was arrested in Switzerland. | :19:38. | :19:40. | |
You said that the panic attacks and insomnia you had | :19:41. | :19:42. | |
suffered your entire life returned in full force. | :19:43. | :19:44. | |
They did not tell me that would happen so it was a complete shock. | :19:45. | :19:51. | |
I called home because I was out of town. | :19:52. | :19:56. | |
I called home to tell them to unplug the phone which is a standard | :19:57. | :20:00. | |
Within hours, they called back, saying that there were reporters | :20:01. | :20:05. | |
in the yard and people there with cameras and people | :20:06. | :20:07. | |
They would not leave and I was in Colorado. | :20:08. | :20:13. | |
I did not think it could get as bad as 1977 but it felt like it did. | :20:14. | :20:17. | |
You said when he was released that he was released and put | :20:18. | :20:20. | |
I wake up in the morning and the nightmare is back | :20:21. | :20:33. | |
and he is in his 70s, sitting in a jail somewhere. | :20:34. | :20:36. | |
I don't know who would feel good about that but I didn't. | :20:37. | :20:41. | |
The district attorney said that it was about a 44-year-old | :20:42. | :20:44. | |
defendant who plied a 13-year-old with drugs and then committed sodomy | :20:45. | :20:47. | |
That would be why he pled guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse | :20:48. | :20:56. | |
All that other stuff the district attorney likes to say for shock | :20:57. | :21:01. | |
value, that is not what he pled guilty to. | :21:02. | :21:04. | |
You think the district attorney were setting out to make life | :21:05. | :21:14. | |
There is another argument - that this is in the public interest. | :21:15. | :21:24. | |
That here is somebody who did something and was never fully held | :21:25. | :21:27. | |
He was never supposed to serve any time and he served 42 days. | :21:28. | :21:36. | |
He did everything he was asked until it became so unreasonable that | :21:37. | :21:39. | |
You quote Jaclyn Freeman in your book, who campaigns on this | :21:40. | :21:51. | |
matter and she says that rape is not just a crime against one person | :21:52. | :21:55. | |
but also against the social fabric that binds us altogether. | :21:56. | :21:58. | |
The argument is that you may want it to go away and he may want it to go | :21:59. | :22:04. | |
away but it sends a very important message to somebody to not do this. | :22:05. | :22:09. | |
I don't understand why people think that he should do more than that. | :22:10. | :22:16. | |
We have the situation where this man who you hardly know, | :22:17. | :22:20. | |
you only met three or four times, in one of which he raped you. | :22:21. | :22:23. | |
You are virtual strangers and yet you are campaigning for him? | :22:24. | :22:26. | |
I am not campaigning for him but I will campaign | :22:27. | :22:29. | |
against a corrupt court, all by myself, for anybody. | :22:30. | :22:34. | |
That's just my personal feeling about it. | :22:35. | :22:36. | |
In the process, is it campaigning for justice for the victim as you go | :22:37. | :22:43. | |
Justice should be for the defendant, for the victim. | :22:44. | :22:55. | |
While you are arguing this, this comes back to again in a sense, | :22:56. | :23:07. | |
whether you are the kind of victim that the public likes? | :23:08. | :23:10. | |
Undoubtedly, majority of public opinion was against him. | :23:11. | :23:19. | |
Yes, which is interesting because now it is. | :23:20. | :23:24. | |
But I know that feels like because when this happened, | :23:25. | :23:26. | |
That is the change of culture between 1977 and now. | :23:27. | :23:31. | |
People called my house and asked if we were prostitutes, | :23:32. | :23:38. | |
And now it is reversed, so I know what it is like to be | :23:39. | :23:55. | |
He wrote you a letter of apology in 2009? | :23:56. | :24:00. | |
It helped because it made my mother feel better and that | :24:01. | :24:05. | |
For me, every one of my family is upset and I want them to feel | :24:06. | :24:12. | |
In it, he said he wanted you to know how sorry | :24:13. | :24:16. | |
he was and that they should give your mother a break. | :24:17. | :24:19. | |
"The fault was mine, not your mother's." It was obvious. | :24:20. | :24:22. | |
I appreciated it and it made my mother feel better. | :24:23. | :24:26. | |
This strange relationship you have with this man... | :24:27. | :24:28. | |
You have been tied to him all your life? | :24:29. | :24:31. | |
I used to think that it might end but I think now that we have both | :24:32. | :24:35. | |
We have had some limited contact and he sent me that note but nothing | :24:36. | :24:47. | |
I know he has a wife and children so I have some sympathy | :24:48. | :24:59. | |
for the way he gets treated about this because, like I said, | :25:00. | :25:02. | |
I have been on the other end of it as well. | :25:03. | :25:05. | |
About what he is like, about what he would be | :25:06. | :25:16. | |
Samantha Geimer, thank you for coming on HARDtalk Thanks | :25:17. | :25:28. | |
the. Temperatures are coming down a week ahead. Make the most of any | :25:29. | :26:05. | |
warm sunshine you have to on Monday, the bulk | :26:06. | :26:06. |