Actress Melissa George has opened up about the violent end to her relationship in an extraordinary interview during which she has called on Australia for help.
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George, 40, and French entrepreneur Jean David Blanc, 48, the father of her two sons, were both found guilty of assaulting each other last year after a domestic incident in their Parisian home.
The attack, according to George who spoke to Seven's Sunday Night program, lasted 27 minutes and ended with her bloodied, bruised and barely conscious in the back of an Uber in the early hours of the morning.
The two began arguing after George was trying to sleep while he ate and watched a movie.
"It started with him on top of me with my arms locked above my head. I used my feet to get him off me for five minutes. I wet the bed. I wet the floor. I just went into a crazy moment of 'I'm in deep shit, I'm in deep shit.' I had to fight for myself, which made him more angry. Which made me more angry," she said.
Blanc then allegedly pushed her into a door, struck her face, slammed her head into a metal hatstand before smacking her in the mouth and standing over her saying: "Now you're a real actress."
After scrambling to find her passport, the former Home and Away star made her way to a police station where she vomited at the front desk before she was taken to hospital.
The couple were then summoned by police to give their version of events.
According to George, Blanc told authorities and her mother in Perth that she was "faking it", was bipolar and had epilepsy.
"The policeman then said 'You can't fake vomit in the trash can Monsieur. Or blood on the Uber car door,' " George said.
Blanc was ordered to pay George €1000 in damages, and she to pay him €1 for scratching him. A bitter custody battle is now under way.
Her personal woes recently made headlines again when it was revealed she tried to take her children, Raphael, 3, and Solal, 1, to the United States on board the private jet of a Russian oligarch a week after the attack.
The children are now unable to travel outside of France without the consent of both parents.
George said the trip was for work and was planned a month in advance.
"I was absolutely not kidnapping. I'll always come back. I will always do what's right," she said.
Since the incident she has been unable to work and has no visa nor means to support herself in her adopted homeland. She is now selling her possessions and receiving help from her mother.
Despite French authorities saying she is free to leave for work purposes, she refuses to do so without the children. She and Blanc now share weekly custody even though George is still breastfeeding Solal.
"I get text messages from him saying, 'You're destroying my baby by breastfeeding him. Would you like me to ... you need to put your boobs in a bag.' "
Throughout the lengthy interview George appeared distraught and, at times, incoherent.
"It was a separation that shouldn't have happened. It was an accident and it got out of hand and now I have to suffer the consequences but it's not right to keep us here without wanting to be here. It has to change. I have to be able to work and be with my babies," she said, despite earlier telling a judge to "take away my career and my ability to work, I just want my babies.
"I just want my country to help me get home and to see this crazy crap we're going through. I need someone to understand what happened," she said.
❏ Support is available by phoning National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service 1800 737 732; Men's Referral Service 1300 766 491.
smh.com.au
