Recipient of Griveaux sex videos did not agree to publish them

Alexandra de Taddeo, the woman who received sexually-explicit videos from former Paris mayor candidate Benjamin Griveaux, says she saved them to protect herself, and that her current boyfriend, Piotr Pavlenski, who published them in February, used them without her permission.

Benjamin Griveaux dropped out of the race for Paris mayor after sexually explicit videos of his were published online. The woman to whom he sent them says she saved them for her records, but did not approve of their being published. JOEL SAGET / AFP

Griveaux, the mayoral candidate for President Emmanuel Macron's La Republique en Marche party, dropped out of the race the day after the videos were put online.

In an interview with the M6 television channel broadcast Sunday, De Taddeo, says that she and Griveaux had started communicating online in 2018, and they met once.

❗ #AffaireGriveaux : Interview exclusive M6 ❗
Alexandra de Taddeo s’exprime pour la 1ère fois en exclusivité dans :
➡Le #12H45 et Le #19H45
➡#66minutes à 17h20 pic.twitter.com/uwYEchYwA2

  M6 (@M6) March 1, 2020

The exchange "ended physically”, and involved “adultery”, she said. Griveaux started sending her the videos after, on his own accord without her asking. She kept a few as a record that he was the one initiating.

“It was a means of protection,” she says.

As for their being made public, De Taddeo says Pavlenski took them from her without her knowledge. She was aware of his plan to create a "political porn" platform, but did not realise the videos would be part it, though once she knew she told him she would continue to support him.

In an interview on CNN on Friday, Pavlenski, a Russian artist who has asylum in France, said that he “stole” the videos from De Taddeo’s computer. 

De Taddeo is under investigation, along with Pavlenski, accused of infringing on Griveaux’s private life. Both are being held in judicial control and cannot communicate with each other.