Samantha Geimer: Courts, Media Damaged Me More Than Roman Polanski

Polanski rape victim tells Larry KIng she wishes Oscar-winning director nothing but the best and would like to see them both stop “being used”

Samantha Geimer says she’s been “more damaged by the court system and the media” than by Roman Polanski, who raped her in 1977 when she was 13.

Appearing on Larry King’s show on CNN Thursday, Geimer, who has spoken out on the case before, again said she believes that case should be dismissed and that Polanski, who “wasn’t likeable or very nice,” has served his time.

Geimer said she “wishes him nothing but the best” and that she would like to see them both stop “being used.”

Geimer, who later successfully sued Polanski in civil court but never receive the estimated $500,000 settlement, said the whole experience of over 30 years ago, including the subsequent medical examination and police questioning was “so horrible.”  

She told King that Polanski, who she said wrote her a note of apology years later, should simply get time served.

After a photo session on March 10, 1977, the then 44-year old Polanski drugged and raped 13-year old Geimer at Jack Nicholson’s home in the Hollywood Hills. "I wanted to be a movie star,” said Geimer when King asked her why she allowed Polanski to photograph her twice in various stages of undress in 1977. "This was an opportunity and I knew it.”

“It was very professional,” the noticeably nervous Geimer told the retiring CNN host of what was her second photo session with the “Chinatown,” then 33, “until all of a sudden it wasn’t.”

The now married 46-year-old, with her longtime lawyer Larry Silver by her side, told King that she thinks that critics of Polanski simply don’t like him and use her and what happened to her as “an excuse.”

Polanski, whose last film was the critically and commercially successful “The Ghost Writer,” came out while he was under house arrest, has started work on the film adaptation of the Broadway hit “God of Carnage,” starring Jodie Foster and Kate Winslet.

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