Updated February 20, 2026 at 11:44 AM MST
In September of 2020, Dominique Pelicot, a man in his 60s, was caught filming up women's skirts at a supermarket in southeastern France. Reports of his behavior led to an investigation that unearthed troves of graphic videos of a heavily sedated woman being sexually abused by him and dozens of other men over the span of nearly a decade.
The woman in the video was his wife of nearly 50 years, Gisèle Pelicot. Her story made headlines around the world after Gisèle opted for a public trial — exposing both the breadth of her abuse and the identities of most of the men responsible for it.
In December of 2024, Dominique Pelicot was found guilty of all charges and received the maximum sentence of 20 years. The 50 other defendants were also found guilty of rape or other sex crimes. Another 20 or so men seen in the tapes were unidentifiable and remain at large.
Gisèle wrote about this experience in a new book, A Hymn To Life. She spoke with NPR's Morning Edition host Michel Martin from Paris, France, through an interpreter.
Below are four takeaways from this conversation.
She says she "did not recognize" herself in the images
When French police called Gisèle Pelicot in to notify her of her husband's abuse, she was confronted with graphic images of events she did not recall because her husband drugged her.
"I did not recognize that woman," she said. "It was like some rag doll disguised and I didn't recognize the people. Like, my brain just wouldn't, couldn't understand it."
Gisèle said it took her "a long time" to use the word rape to describe what was done to her.
She says "shame needed to change sides," when it came to having an open trial
In the lead-up to the trial against her husband and the other defendants, Gisèle Pelicot said she planned to have a closed tribunal.
Yet, "little by little," she said the decision to make the trial public came to her.
"I said to myself that shame needed to change sides and by having the closed trial, I was giving them a gift," she said. "All these men, their names wouldn't have been known and what they did wouldn't have been known."
The trial was closely followed by international media and Gisèle was often greeted by scores of supporters who thanked her for her bravery in exposing how she had been harmed — which sparked larger conversations about rape and sex assault across the world.
She was accused of being a willing participant, but video evidence proved otherwise
"I experienced total humiliation. I was considered consenting, complicit, a suspect," she said of having to defend herself in court and in the public eye.
Unlike many other sexual assault cases, hers was well documented thanks to the video evidence Dominique Pelicot kept for years and used to recruit other men on the dark web.
She still believes in the strength of love
In the midst of grappling with her husband's abuse, Gisèle met a new man who she writes about in the book, sharing that he was part of her support system throughout the legal proceedings. She concludes A Hymn to Life with her thoughts on the power of love.
"I still need to believe in love. … I even believe that I knew how to give it. I now know that it comes from a deep wound within me that makes me vulnerable. But I accept that fragility, that risk, still. To fight the emptiness I need to love," she wrote.
She closed our conversation by saying, "I think love can save the world. And I've just had the great fortune of being in love again. And I think if you don't love, you don't exist. If I don't love, I don't exist. And I need to keep on loving."
For more on Gisèle Pelicot's case, Morning Edition also spoke to Lisa Fontes, an expert in coercive control and sexual violence.
Tamara McGinnis provided the interpretation for this interview.
You can hear the full conversation with Gisèle Pelicot on NPR's The Sunday Story.
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