Guillaume Depardieu and why you shouldn’t drink and drive more than once.

When I first saw this story I just brushed it off because I didn’t think it would interest any of you (or me), but it was splattered all over the French tabloids so I decided to do a little more research. And I’ll tell you, Guillaume Depardieu is quite the screw-up.

Link: He’s at it again.

Guillaume Deardieu (37), an actor not so well known in America.

Tuesday night at 8:30PM French time, Guillaume Depardieu, the famous actor with an even more famous dad, was rushed to the hospital after getting into accident on his motoscooter. I suppose the whole ordeal was fairly secret since the press didn’t report anything until Thursday night.

It was speculated that his blood-alcohol level was 3 grams per liter (I’m not sure how to convert that one into our customary percentages…), which is 6 times the legal limit for driving in France.

You should see now why I wasn’t interested. Just another actor who got drunk and made a stupid mistake. Typical.

But then I learned that Guillaume here not only had gotten in a similar accident before in 1995, he also lost his leg because of it. Mon Dieu!

After undergoing several knee surgeries for his right knee as a result of the accident, he lost his leg in 2003 because of an infection contracted at the hospital. After that, he started his own charity for victims of hospital-caused infections.

So you can tell this guy has a heart, but unfortunately it is often intoxicated with alcohol. He is also talented, winning the César (the French Oscars) for Best Actor in 1996.

But he has an extensive history with the law. In 1988, he was spent nearly 2 years in house arrest for drug-addiction and heroin trafficking (he was only 17 at the time which is why I think he wasn’t put in the big house). Then in 2003 (before or after the amputation, I’m not sure), Depardieu was sentenced to 9 months in prison for shooting a bullet after an “altercation” with a fan. The fan wasn’t hurt, but that still meant 9 months in prison for the actor. Then again, on February 10th of this year, Depardieu was caught driving his scooter under the influence and sentenced to 2 months of prison as a result.

Now that’s quite a busy schedule.

In this most recent accident, his prosthetic leg was crushed, his face burned from the rubbing against the road, and his arm and elbow broken. The actor was released today around 7PM French time.

I had never heard of Guillaume before this recent accident, but I’m sure many of you know of his father, Gérard Depardieu, the celebrated French actor who played everything from Cyrano de Bergerac to Katherine Heigl’s father in the terrible My Father the Hero.

I hope everything works out for Guillaume in the end, but he definitely needs to get his act together!

Conduis soigneusement…