Good morning. Happy Presidents’ Day. Savannah Guthrie made an emotional appeal for her mother’s return two weeks after she disappeared. And the Department of Homeland Security‘s funding has lapsed, but most of its agencies, including T.S.A. and ICE, are still working. There’s more news below. But let’s start today with Gisèle Pelicot. She is the French woman whose husband of 50 years repeatedly drugged and raped her in their home and invited dozens of men to rape her while she was unconscious. Her story is horrifying. But as Lulu Garcia-Navarro, a host of “The Interview” podcast, learned, Pelicot harbors deep reserves of strength and grace. I’ll let Lulu tell you about it.
Surviving a horrorby Lulu Garcia-Navarro I didn’t know what to expect when I sat down with Gisèle Pelicot for almost three hours on a chilly Paris day in January. Pelicot became a global symbol of empowerment after waiving her right to anonymity during a mass rape trial in France, where she publicly faced down her husband of 50 years and dozens of his co-conspirators in open court in 2024. Still, she remained something of an enigma. Her few on-camera public statements on her way to and from the courthouse were dignified but brief, and she only recently agreed to sit for an interview. Now, she’s ready to talk. Pelicot has written a searing memoir, “A Hymn to Life: Shame Has to Change Sides,” about her early life, her marriage, what it was like to learn about the ways she’d been violated for years. Those monstrous crimes raised awareness of drug-facilitated sexual assault and her long and complex recovery in the wake of those revelations. Open, eloquent, emotionalI’ve interviewed many survivors of sexual and physical abuse. Often, and understandably, it is difficult for people to talk about. Pelicot, 73, is also just a regular person — a former working mother of three, now a retired grandmother — who found herself in extraordinary circumstances. I wondered how open she would be when talking to a journalist. I spent hours thinking about how to phrase things sensitively, and what to ask. But from the moment we sat down, it was obvious that Pelicot had great inner strength and was ready to talk. She was open, eloquent and at times emotional. She told me that she wrote the book to be useful to others, “to show them that it is possible to overcome terrible trials. To show them that we have the resources within us to get through it.” Pelicot told me many awful stories. One of the most harrowing parts of our conversation was about the blackouts and unexplained memory loss she experienced for years, before understanding that they were a result of drugging. At the time, she thought she was losing her mind, or dying. Another moment that I’ve had trouble getting out of my head is when she talked about the men who raped her but still have not been identified by the police, and how she spent many years fearing that she would run into them. The worst part: Because she had been so heavily sedated during the assaults, they would recognize her but she wouldn’t recognize them. Ramifications and rebuildingStill, Pelicot does not want to be seen as a victim. In the years between learning what had been done to her and the trial, she divorced her husband, Dominique Pelicot, and found love again. Her new partner, whom she brought to the interview, has helped her rebuild. She told me that because she has no memory of what happened to her, it has perhaps been easier to move forward with her life. She mourns for the many women who do remember but don’t have the evidence to prove anything. She says she is “standing tall” and unbroken despite all the men who wanted to see her break. That is less true of her family. Images of her daughter Caroline were also found on Dominique Pelicot’s devices. Caroline stopped talking to her mother because she felt Gisèle wasn’t supportive enough of her concerns that she too might have been abused by her father. They are now tentatively back in touch, but Pelicot described what had happened to her family as an “explosion that blows everything away.” After the interview ended, Pelicot wiped tears from her eyes and told me she was grateful for the chance to emotionally process what had happened to her. I got the sense of a woman who had endured the unthinkable, and had somehow come through it, but there is still much she is trying to make sense of. She told me that, eventually, she wants to visit her ex-husband in prison, to get the answer to what may be an unanswerable question: Why did he do what he did to her? She knows that meeting will be hard, but it’s something she needs to do. “Maybe he’ll have some remorse when we’re face to face,” she told me. “I’m still holding on to that hope.” Watch it here or read the biggest takeaways from the conversation.
Cross-country skiing: Norway’s victory in the team relay gave Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo his ninth career gold medal, a record for the Winter Games. Downhill skiing: The American Mikaela Shiffrin failed to reach the podium in the women’s Alpine giant slalom, finishing 11th. Italy’s Federica Brignone took gold, her second at these Olympics. Ski jumping: Anna Odine Stroem of Norway became the first woman to win two individual ski-jumping events in the same Games, taking the large hill event in its Olympic debut. Moguls: Mikaël Kingsbury earned Canada’s first gold medal of these Games, winning the inaugural competition in men’s dual moguls. Hockey: The U.S. reached the quarterfinals of the men’s tournament with a 5-1 win over Germany.
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The liberal counterpart to the Federalist Society is not only viable but necessary, Jeffrey Toobin argues. To protect our children, we need times when devices, apps and games aren’t available at all, Michaeleen Doucleff writes. Here is a column by Michelle Goldberg about “Data,” a new play about a conflicted manager who is pulled into a secret project. Morning readers: Save on the complete Times experience. Experience all of The Times, all in one subscription — all with this introductory offer. You’ll gain unlimited access to news and analysis, plus games, recipes, product reviews and more.
Gobble girls: Manhattan’s only known wild turkey has her own entourage of women who look after her. Passage to freedom: A secret opening in the Merchant’s House Museum in New York City may have been part of the Underground Railroad. Your pick: The most-clicked link in The Morning yesterday was about a decision by Ring, the home-security company Amazon owns, to end its partnership with a surveillance technology company. Metropolitan Diary: Maybe the cat was on a break. Bootleg tobacco: Australia has the most expensive cigarettes in the world. The prices have fueled a multibillion-dollar black market. Olympian obituaries: The Times has memorialized the lives of a figure-skating trailblazer, a “Miracle on Ice” hockey player, a bobsledder who overcame blindness and others over the years.
80— That is the approximate percentage of Bangladeshis who voted last week to give prime ministers term limits and increase women’s participation in politics. It was a victory for student protesters who ousted the prime minister in 2024.
Lunar New Year celebrations begin tomorrow, and my old colleagues at New York Times Cooking are saluting the moment with their annual Dumpling Week extravaganza. I’m starting with Sue Li’s pork and garlic-chive potstickers, a take on a traditional pan-fried dumpling that she used to buy from a stand after morning hikes at Elephant Mountain in Taipei. The filling’s a simple mixture of ground pork and minced garlic chives, which have the texture of leeks, with a strong, garlicky flavor. That’s a wrap!
“The Simpsons” aired its 800th episode last night, on what happened to be its creator Matt Groening’s 72nd birthday. In a recent conversation, Groening told The Times there was no end in sight for the series. “I’m not going to be the guy that says it’s over,” he said. |
