Gérard Depardieu has broken his silence to deny allegations of rape and sexual assault made against him.

The 74-year-old actor is being investigated after actress Charlotte Arnould claimed in 2018 he had raped her, and earlier this year, 13 women accused the 'Green Card' star of sexually inappropriate behaviour in a piece for website Mediapart, but now Depardieu has penned an open letter addressing the claims, in which he insisted he had "never, ever abused a woman" and that "hurting a woman would be like kicking my own mother in the stomach".

He wrote in Le Figaro newspaper in a letter headed 'I finally want to tell you my truth': “I can no longer allow what I hear, what I have read about myself for several months. I thought I didn’t care, but no, actually no. This all gets to me. Worse still, it wipes me out."

Without referring to Charlotte by name, Deparieu insisted his accuser had gone to his room "of her own free will" and there had never been any "coercion" from him.

He wrote: “Today, I can no longer sing 'Barbara'because a woman who wanted to sing 'Barbara' with me accused me of rape. I finally want to tell you my truth. I have never, ever abused a woman.

“Hurting a woman would be like kicking my own mother in the stomach.

“A woman came to my house for the first time, with a light step, going up to my room of her own free will. She says today that she was raped there. She came back a second time.

“There has never been any coercion, violence or protest between us. She wanted to sing Barbara’s songs at the Cirque d’Hiver with me. I told him no… She filed a complaint.”

The 'Life of Pi' actor also addressed allegations of sexually inappropriate behaviour on set and insisted he was simply "behaving like a child who wanted to have fun".

He wrote: “I’ve often done that which others wouldn’t dare to do: pushed limits, shaken certitudes, habits on the set between two takes, between two tensions… to get a laugh.

“Not everyone laughed. If, in believing to live the present intensely, I hurt, shocked someone, whoever it was, it was never my intention to hurt, and I beg you to excuse me for behaving like a child who wanted to have fun in a gallery."

Charlotte's lawyer, Carine Durrieu-Diebolt, said she was "shocked and scandalised" by the letter.

She told radio station France Info: “Mr. Depardieu says he is exposing his truth, but it is certainly not Charlotte’s truth and it will certainly not be the one that will be upheld by the courts."