Il Divo tenor Sébastien Izambard's estranged wife Renée Izambard has accused him of domestic violence, sexual assault, and battery.
Renée Izambard filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court Monday requesting damages for sexual battery, assault, and infliction of emotional distress, according to The Los Angeles Times. Since meeting in 2005, Renée alleges that the tenor subjected her to "years of dangerous psychological abuse and torture, and intense sexual, physical, and emotional abuse, bringing her to the doorstep of death," according to The New York Times.
She further called him a "duplicitous domestic abuser" who is a "coercively controlling, cruel, sexually depraved spouse abuser."
Commenting on the suit, Renée's lawyer, Devin McRae, said his client was "just fighting to be free of abuse," according to The New York Times.
Sébastien has not responded to the lawsuit.
The couple met in 2005 and, shortly after, the abuse began, according to the complaint. Referring to their first trip together in Thailand, the suit states that Sébastien made Renée watch as he received sexual services from sex workers, The Los Angeles Times noted. The documents further allege that, in 2006, he flew into a rage and "dragged Renée across the hotel room floor by her arms and clothing, swearing, yelling, pulling and pushing before tearing her clothes off. Renée quickly fled the hotel, with no money, with just a T-shirt and track pants in a foreign country."
Sébastien exercised control over Renée, and denied her "independence, financially and otherwise," the suit states. The complaint further alleges that Renée was pressured to perform sexual acts against her will.
In 2018, Renée separated from Sébastien. Shortly after, the Woolsey fire forced her and her children to evacuate their Malibu home. The fire left them living in a mobile home, prompting Renée to sue Sébastien and the insurance company. In that lawsuit, Renée claimed the insurer stopped paying her monthly rent while continuing to pay her husband between $15,000 and $20,000 from December 2019 through to July 2020, according to Daily Mail.
As a result, the complaint claimed that Renée had to move into a "mobile home park" as it was "the only property she could afford." The insurer, State Farm, later paid her a lump sum equivalent of $19,600 per month, but this was "too little, too late, as Ms. Izambard had already been forced to move into another, cheaper mobile home."
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Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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