Queen left ‘speechless’ by French rape survivor Pelicot

The Queen has told French rape survivor Gisele Pelicot she was “speaking out” when she opened up about her ordeal in her new memoir.

As her UK tour promoting the book drew to a close, Camilla invited Pelicot to her official home in London and told her guest that she had read the memoir in just two days and couldn’t put it down.

Hymn to Life: Shame Must Switch Sides was launched at London’s Royal Festival Hall on Friday, with readings from Hollywood actors Kate Winslet, Kristin Scott Thomas and Juliet Stevenson.

The Queen wrote to the 73-year-old in 2025 to praise his “remarkable dignity and courage” in a letter framed in her office, which the survivor said left her “overwhelmed”.

As the women sat down for tea for a 30-minute meeting at Clarence House, Camilla said of the memoir: “I read it in the last two days, I couldn’t put it down.

“I have met so many survivors of rape and sexual abuse that I never thought I could be shocked by anything anymore, but I am shocked by your situation; it leaves me speechless.”

Pelicot’s ex-husband, Dominique Pelicot, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for almost a decade of abuse in which he drugged and raped her and allowed other men to rape her while she was unconscious.

The 73-year-old woman, who waived her anonymity as a victim of sexual abuse, said the shame should fall on the abusers, not her.

Fifty men were found guilty of rape or sexual offenses after a three-and-a-half-month trial in Avignon that ended in December 2024.

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