Samantha Geimer : Roman Polanski is Not a pedophile, He's a Fine person

Is Polanski a paedophile?

I don’t think so. I looked up the definition: pre-pubescent. That’s children. That’s sick. Like, five year olds, eight year old, ten year old, 12 years old. Children who are children. That is a really serious messed up thing. If somebody’s doing that they’re sick. Maybe somebody’s creepy and they go after teenage girls, and it’s shitty and it’s wrong, but it’s not paedophilia. Don’t throw in 17-year-olds, and me. I don’t think we should throw people in there for the sensation of saying that word. It takes away from the actual crime. There’s child traffickers out there. Let’s not pretend that we’re hunting down paedophiles by calling Roman Polanski one. Let’s hunt down paedophiles.

For people who don’t know the background, the judge initially put Polanski behind bars to have him assessed for ‘psychosis’. A deal was then struck, but the judge reneged on it and started talking about locking him up and throwing away the key?

He admitted what he’d done, he’d said he was sorry – maybe you can give him probation or counselling? We were all scared. We were all victim of this judge behaving bizarrely. So, he (Polanski) went home to France, which I would’ve done too under the circumstances. Nobody knew what the judge was going to do. What if he sentenced Roman to 50 years and he died the next day? I was glad he (Polanski) left. I was relieved he left the country.

Have you ever watched his films?

(Laughs) Don’t laugh at me. The Fearless Vampire Killers was my favourite movie as a young person. I have it. I saw it on TV as a child. If I had known that that was him when I met him, I would’ve been like, ‘That’s the best movie I ever saw. It’s scary, yet it’s funny. It’s brilliant’. But I didn’t realise that until years later and then it was like, ‘Oh my God! I can’t believe I didn’t know that was him and Sharon Tate, and I’d never put it together’. I like The Ninth Gate. I know people don’t like that. I didn’t like Chinatown. I didn’t like Rosemary’s Baby. I didn’t like Tess. His movies are sad and dark

Quentin Tarantino, who is making a movie about the Manson murders, landed in hot water when stuff he said about Polanski on the Howard Stern Show 15 years ago, resurfaced. “It was statutory rape… he had sex with a minor. That’s not rape,” he said. He has since apologised?

He called and then wrote an apology, which was nice. He was just trying to be controversial on the Howard Stern Show. I asked about the new movie and he said it was not like it sounds, so I was relieved. And we both enjoyed Roman’s The Fearless Vampire Killers when we were young. We had a good chat. No hard feelings from me. I have listened to all kinds of terrible and untrue things about my mother and I, since I was 13, so I have a pretty thick skin and a good sense of humour.

This is old news though?

Some Hollywood stars like Whoopi Goldberg said it wasn’t “rape rape”.?

I laughed. It was like, ‘Oh God! You can’t say that. She’s going to get shit’. But I knew what she meant. She meant it wasn’t a violent (rape) like the way I thought about it when it happened, like, ‘That can’t be rape! That wasn’t violent or brutal’. Technically, yes, it’s rape. Legally, yes, it’s rape. I think by the standards of those days, the fact that I really didn’t resist, if I was a year older, it would’ve been different. Rape back then was like violent and hurtful. You’d think of that as somebody just pressured you. Times are different now. But she meant, ‘It’s not like he’s a monster’ (laughs). I understood that. I didn’t take offence.

There are others who have claimed they were raped by Polanski?

But when you have to put up a website, imetromanpolanski.com to get a few teenage girls to come out and say, ‘He had sex with me. I was 16’. ‘I was 15’. I’m the only one he raped. We went to court. I proved it. A lot of them don’t even say they had sex, they make these vague like, ‘He victimised me’ or, ‘He abused me’. What does ‘victimised me’ mean? Did he rape you or not? So, there’s no details. I always figured that he probably had sex with lots of teenage girls. I don’t think that he denies that he did.

Would you say he’s as bad as Harvey Weinstein?

No. Someone wrote an article comparing the two – it was really offensive. From what I hear, Harvey Weinstein was systematically harassing, manipulating, like having people followed with private investigators, paying them off, and making them sign agreements. Like, that’s a whole different thing. That’s predatory behaviour. That’s somebody who’s using their power to hurt and intimidate people. That’s just far beyond Roman making his mistakes and having sex with girls who’re too young. If somebody feels really hurt by him, I don’t mean to disregard that they feel really hurt by Roman. But Weinstein – wow! That seems way more serious, like years and years of bad behaviour. He seems like a really bad person and I don’t think Roman’s a really bad person.

So old r2

Would it be fair to describe Polanski as a sex predator?

He is now 84. His life is what it is now. I would certainly say it would’ve been fair back then to call him a dirty old man. I don’t know if he’s really a predator because I don’t think he really had to be. He had plenty of girls and women. You could call him a predator or not; I don’t want to. I think it’s not fair now, because the guy has a family, he’s older. He has a wife. Can we think about her for a minute? Give him a fucking break. This was a long time ago. He was a shitty person. That’s not happening anymore.

Have you forgiven Roman Polanski for raping you?

Yes. it was a long time ago. We’ve all been through a lot. I know he never meant to hurt me or for any of this to happen. He just did a shitty thing. But that was 40 years ago. He apologised in a letter: ‘It wasn’t your mother’s fault. I’m sorry. It’s on me. I hope you’re good’.

Is it acceptable for people to still enjoy Polanski’s work regardless of his crimes?

Sure. Absolutely. Why not? What does that have to do with me? He did a bad thing, he went to jail – but he’s never supposed to work again? I don’t understand that kind of criticism. If you don’t want to see a Woody Allen movie because you believe that he’s a creepy child molester, don’t go see his movies. Don’t work with him. It’s overkill. It’s too much. Don’t tell other people what they should see.

Actors are apologising for working with Woody Allen.

They are under pressure to apologise. An apology now is not really costing anybody anything. It’s not skin off you. So, I don’t like it. I don’t like that people are not supposed to work with him or work for him or see his movies, and be sorry that they did. It’s fine if they want to apologise if they feel bad. But he’s never even been charged with a crime. We’re just going to judge him in the court of public opinion? I don’t think it’s fair to say, ‘You must believe one side of this story or the other side’.

So, you can obviously relate to the #metoo movement…

In the ways that it’s positive, I’m 100 percent in. It was like, ‘Yeah! Let’s show how many people this affects’. And then I was like, ‘Wait! Are we just taking down celebrities here? What about all the people who have problems in their lives that don’t have politicians or celebrities involved?’ I don’t like seeing that it’s gone that way. It was well intended. I’m a little worried that it’s going in directions that are not helpful.

In what sense?

I don’t really think it should be used to take down celebrities. We’re trying to get equal wages and equal rights, and to end a society where sexual harassment is tolerated. So, I feel trying to take out Woody Allen or Roman Polanski or James Franco, it’s like, ‘Hey! Focus! We’re trying to make the world better for women and being mean to celebrities that’s not it…’ Listening to everybody who wants to say, ‘Al Franken touched my waist’. Ok, just stop! Let’s move forward. If it just turns into a weapon to use against celebrities and politicians then that’s pretty sad. I think all this celebrity bashing is a distraction and it’s not really nice.

Is there a danger in that people’s reputation can be destroyed by a few anonymous tweets.

It doesn’t happen much, but that doesn’t mean that it never happens – so that’s why we have courts and police. Go to court – otherwise don’t be accusing people of things and expecting dire consequences when you’ve never bothered to prove it. That sounds kind of shitty – I’m sorry. We’re having #metoo now, so every single celebrity is going to have a bunch of people talk about stuff they did 20 and 30 years ago. Ok, it’s probably true. I don’t know. But who’s this helping?

Would it be fair to describe Polanski as a sex predator?

He is now 84. His life is what it is now. I would certainly say it would’ve been fair back then to call him a dirty old man. I don’t know if he’s really a predator because I don’t think he really had to be. He had plenty of girls and women. You could call him a predator or not; I don’t want to. I think it’s not fair now, because the guy has a family, he’s older. He has a wife. Can we think about her for a minute? Give him a fucking break. This was a long time ago. He was a shitty person. That’s not happening anymore.

Have you forgiven Roman Polanski for raping you?

Yes. it was a long time ago. We’ve all been through a lot. I know he never meant to hurt me or for any of this to happen. He just did a shitty thing. But that was 40 years ago. He apologised in a letter: ‘It wasn’t your mother’s fault. I’m sorry. It’s on me. I hope you’re good’.

Is it acceptable for people to still enjoy Polanski’s work regardless of his crimes?

Sure. Absolutely. Why not? What does that have to do with me? He did a bad thing, he went to jail – but he’s never supposed to work again? I don’t understand that kind of criticism. If you don’t want to see a Woody Allen movie because you believe that he’s a creepy child molester, don’t go see his movies. Don’t work with him. It’s overkill. It’s too much. Don’t tell other people what they should see.

In short, Samantha admits the following (from the above interview):

She acted like 21 YO, saying to him (sure, give me pill).

She didn't resist.

Roman thought she was cool with it.

Sex for her wasn't traumatizing and Roman didn't hurt her

Samantha admits that Roman book wasn't wrong but she's only pissed off about how he described her family life style as low class.

She think Roman is a fine person

She doesn't consider him pedo because she wasn't pre - pubescent.

She was happy and relieved when she fled the country and escaping prison.

She wasn't upset with Whoopi' rape rape comment because she knew and understood what she meant

She watches his movies regularly even though she's not a fan of his work.