French movie star Gerard Depardieu has admitted in a Paris court to grabbing by the hips a woman who accuses him of sexual assault, but denied this was assault and said any crude comments he made were just because of his bad mood.

The plaintiff, Amelie K, who spoke in court after Depardieu on Tuesday, said he had touched her all over her body as he trapped her between his legs, while making explicit sexual comments, in an assault on a film set in 2021 that terrified her.

“I grabbed her hips,” Depardieu said, admitting to physical contact with set decorator Amelie K for the first time and saying he had not told police about it when being interrogated.

But he added: “I grabbed her hip so as not to slip because I was so upset by her, by the heat, it was a Friday towards the end of shooting, I was very tired.”

A towering figure of French cinema, Depardieu, now aged 76, has faced a growing number of sexual assault allegations in recent years.

He has consistently denied any wrongdoing and this is the first case for which he is standing trial.

The trial relates to charges of sexual assault during the 2021 filming of Les Volets Verts (The Green Shutters) by director Jean Becker.

Anouk Grinberg, a prominent actor who appeared in the film, has backed the case’s two plaintiffs – a set dresser, 54, identified only as Amelie K, and a 34-year-old assistant director. Both women allege sexual violence.

Giving his account of events during the shoot, Depardieu told the court on Tuesday that he had been upset at Amelie K over her work. He said he had accused her of doing her job badly and that she had been shocked by that.

“I don’t see why I would grope a woman,” he told the court, adding that he was so overweight at the time that some of what he is accused of – such as trapping Amelie K between his legs – would have been impossible.

Crude comments he made at the time were not directed at her personally, he said, but related to her work.

Amelie K told the court that Depardieu had not criticised her work at all at the time. Instead, she said, he made repeated, crude sexual comments, and assaulted her.

“He grabbed me and groped me in the front of my body, the back, all around. He trapped me with his legs,” the plaintiff told the court, adding that she could not move away.

“He touched everything, including my breasts,” she said. “I was terrified; he was laughing.”

Amelie K said someone – she did not know who – eventually stepped in, freeing her from Depardieu and pulling her away.

Prosecutors have given a similar account of what they also described as a sexual assault, and which they said was witnessed by three people.

They said the second woman was groped by Depardieu on set and in the street.

Depardieu’s lawyer Jeremie Assous told reporters on Monday that the accusations were false and based on lies. In court, he accused investigators of being biased and wanting to bring Depardieu down.

Depardieu’s trial is the highest-profile #MeToo case in the media industry to come before the courts in France.

If found guilty, he could face a sentence of up to five years in jail and a 75,000-euro ($81,000) fine.

Depardieu became a star in France in the 1980s with roles in the films The Last Metro, Police and Cyrano de Bergerac, before Peter Weir’s 1990 film Green Card also made him a Hollywood celebrity.

He later acted in global productions including Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet, Ang Lee’s Life of Pi, and Netflix’s Marseille series.