De Volkskrant — Perhaps Michel Houellebecq will simply write a book about this ‘sombre histoire’

Interview. Next week, Michel Houellebecq’s appeal against art collective Kirac will be heard. In the small Paris apartment where he wrote Annihilation, the writer wants to give his side of the story.

Ariejan Korteweg. 13 April 2023, 15:16.

It is Tuesday evening and the phone rings. An unknown number appears on the display, beginning with 0033: France. A voice so soft that it is unintelligible. Excusez-moi? More mumbling, and then it dawns on me: Michel Houellebecq. It is the day on which the 67-year-old French writer lost the case he had brought in Amsterdam against the city’s art collective Kirac. A few months earlier, it had filmed Houellebecq having sex for Kirac 27, due for release this spring, but the writer had come to regret his participation. He fears that releasing the footage will seriously damage his reputation and brought a court case, which he has now lost.

The controversy has preoccupied the media in France, the Netherlands and far beyond over the past few months. At its core are recognisability and a rather far-reaching contract. Kirac, short for Keeping It Real Art Critics, is an Amsterdam art collective that aims to expose hypocrisy, including through films. It became nationally known in 2021 with Honeypot, showing how philosopher Sid Lukkassen, affiliated with Forum for Democracy, responded to an appeal by student and porn actress Jini van Rooijen, who was looking for a ‘right-wing partner’ to have sex with. Their meeting and lovemaking were filmed, but afterwards Lukkassen regretted it and tearfully withdrew his cooperation. That too was filmed, and the scene ended up in the film.

Something similar happened to Houellebecq. In early November 2022, he had a meeting in Paris with Stefan Ruitenbeek, the collective’s leader. Houellebecq too had sex with Van Rooijen, filmed by Kirac. Afterwards, he came to Amsterdam for more sex arranged by Ruitenbeek and signed a stranglehold contract from which, according to the judge, he cannot escape. The ruling disappointed him enormously, he says on the phone, and he would like to tell his side of the story. ‘Come over.’

A few days later, I walk through Paris’s quiet 13th arrondissement to a small apartment building with a front garden. Only on the third ring does anyone answer. The same voice, even softer and slower than on the telephone, comes through the intercom. ‘Sorry, I was asleep.’ The writer opens the door, his hair dishevelled, wearing slippers and grubby deep-blue pyjamas, the top three buttons undone to reveal some chest hair.

The room is simple: a window overlooking a small courtyard garden, a large desk with a computer, a clock, and several cupboards empty apart from a few books and assorted medicine packets. And a large, unmade bed with purple-blue sheets, onto which he settles, his back against the end, one leg folded beneath the other. Beside the bed is a chair. ‘Sit down,’ he says. ‘A glass of wine, perhaps some water?’ A low cabinet separates the bed and chair, holding a glass with a little red wine in it, a half-full ashtray and more boxes of medication. Beside the writer are a packet of cigarettes and a folder of papers about the court case. It is warm.

In this work apartment, which Houellebecq has had since 2017, he wrote his novels Serotonin and Annihilation. Annihilation, published in Dutch translation last month, concerns a married couple who rediscover each other after a long marriage. Later, Houellebecq will explain how Prudence, the wife of protagonist Paul Raison, was inspired by Trinity in The Matrix. And how Bercy, the futuristic Ministry of Finance where Raison works, has always fascinated him. Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire is a friend. He too was a source of inspiration.

This case must weigh heavily on you for you to pick up the phone yourself and call a journalist in the Netherlands.

‘That wasn’t it. Above all, I was tired of my opponent being able to speak everywhere while I couldn’t.’

That is rather exaggerated: Ruitenbeek was not the only one to make himself heard in recent weeks. Houellebecq wrote an account of events published in the French weekly Le Point and gave telephone interviews to NRC and Trouw shortly before the ruling.

He stares ahead as he speaks and takes so much time that it seems as though there is an echo on the line. What he most wants is to go through the whole affair once again.

He recounts how Ruitenbeek contacted him by email. How they found common ground in their love of science-fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft. Ruitenbeek sent him films of his work, which Houellebecq says he did not watch. ‘So many people send me things: manuscripts, but also music and films. I can’t possibly look at everything.’ He says he only watched Honeypot much later too. ‘Disgusting. That poor boy, crying on the phone because he didn’t want to take part.’

In September 2022, Ruitenbeek — Houellebecq keeps calling him Rwietenbeek — emailed a proposal. Kirac would organise a theatrical spectacle at Amsterdam’s Rietveld Academy, inspired by Houellebecq. Participants would wear costumes from Lovecraft’s universe. Would Houellebecq perform the opening by cutting a ribbon?

The writer shifts position. ‘That intrigued me.’

Do you often cut ribbons?

‘I had never been asked before. I said I would come.’

But first Ruitenbeek came to Paris, where he had to be anyway to film gangbangs that Jini van Rooijen, a friend of his, wanted to record there for her account on the paid online platform OnlyFans.

You knew about those gangbangs before he came?

‘Yes, though I only half believed it. It seemed a bit idiotic to come to Paris for that.’

Because you can film gangbangs in Amsterdam too?

‘Exactly. Apparently he wanted to butter me up by bringing along an easy girl who might want sex. I wasn’t opposed to the idea in advance.’

The four of them were to have dinner: the two Dutch visitors, plus Houellebecq and his wife Lysis Li, whom he married in 2018. Houellebecq pulled out at the last minute; he wasn’t feeling well. During dinner, Lysis Li suggested filming porn scenes with Van Rooijen, Houellebecq and herself. It would cheer up the writer, who struggles with depression.

So your wife came home from dinner and suggested making a sex film?

‘That’s how it happened.’

And you thought it was a good idea?

‘Yes, but I wanted there to be doubt about who was performing the sex scenes. We would wear masks.’

They filmed for two hours, Houellebecq says. Afterwards, he remained doubtful: it would be too easy to recognise that body of his. He refused to provide a copy of his passport, which is required to appear on OnlyFans. As a result, the film could not be released, and Van Rooijen earned nothing from it.

So you did in fact take advantage of her?

A long silence. ‘That is true. But saying I took advantage also implies that she didn’t enjoy it. She later sent me an email saying how lovely it had been; she was delighted.’

Was this a trap by Kirac to get you into a porn film?

‘I don’t know. On Ruitenbeek’s part, yes. I can’t say that of Jini. She must have thought I would draw a lot of visitors to her OnlyFans.’

Relations between the Houellebecqs and Ruitenbeek were still good then. Good enough for them to accept his proposal to come to Amsterdam, where there would be all kinds of girls wanting to share the famous writer’s bed.

At this point in the story, there is something Houellebecq wants to explain: his wife had written a screenplay for an erotic film based on one of his books. Ruitenbeek said he found it interesting and sent photographs of girls who could appear in it. Of the screenplay, Houellebecq says: ‘When you read it, it seems a muddle, but in her head it is much less so. My wife is Chinese; her French isn’t perfect.’

Apparently you were looking forward to that Amsterdam adventure. On 25 November, you emailed Ruitenbeek saying: ‘I’ll fuck all the girls you introduce to me, to the best of my ability.’

‘That’s right, yes.’

On 21 December, the Houellebecqs arrive in Amsterdam. The reception is different from what they had expected: Ruitenbeek and a cameraman are waiting for them at the Thalys with the camera running.

According to Ruitenbeek, your wife said she knew about this and had made herself look nice beforehand for that reason.

‘She didn’t tell me that, and I didn’t see her do it. I found that reception very unpleasant.’

We come to the crucial moment: signing the contract.

‘I can show you how that happened,’ says the writer. He shuffles to his computer and, after a long search, finds a video. It shows the writer lying on a hotel bed, his wife sitting beside him. The atmosphere is giggly and awkward. We hear Ruitenbeek explain that he has added a provision stating that the writer and his wife may not appear with their genitals in the same scene. We see Houellebecq looking at the English text; he asks what ‘fondling’ means. Caresser, it turns out when the French translation is consulted: to caress. Caresser? The writer has no problem with that. After three minutes, the video ends. The signing session lasted eight minutes in all, and there were three pages of text.

Houellebecq says he had shared half a bottle of wine with his wife earlier that evening. At the hearing, his lawyer stressed that alcohol mixes badly with the antidepressants Houellebecq takes. Is the writer lucid in that footage? As lucid as he is now, one would think. Which is a difficult state to assess. He sometimes seems absent, but those could also be pauses for thought; as soon as he speaks, he is sharp and precise.

He shows another video, recorded by Kirac in the restaurant they went to afterwards. Whose idea was the film, a member of the collective asks. ‘I don’t remember,’ says Lysis Li. The crew member finds that remarkable. Lysis, giggling: ‘He just want to fuck.’ Houellebecq corrects her: ‘No, that isn’t it.’

‘What I mainly see is that I was very tired here,’ says the writer when the video ends. Watching the footage again brings his anger back to the surface. ‘They manipulated me, turned me into an animal without a will of its own.’ The contract’s effective date turns out to be 1 November 2022, so it also covers the OnlyFans footage from Paris. No one points this out when it is signed. Ruitenbeek later says he had told Houellebecq beforehand in an email.

Do you often read contracts?

‘Never. This is the first one I have signed without an agent reading it beforehand. It is their profession, after all. Thank goodness.’

He talks about his fear of tongue cancer. During recording sessions in honour of French singer Daniel Darc, who died in 2013, a musician, himself a heavy smoker, said that he was not afraid of lung cancer but was all the more afraid of cancer of the tongue and throat. Smokers were particularly susceptible, he said. Houellebecq decided to use this in his next book: Paul Raison, the protagonist of Annihilation, would die of the disease. He began researching it, and the photographs doctors sent him have been burned into his memory ever since. ‘AIDS didn’t frighten me, nor did Covid. This did. I can’t get rid of it. When I heard in early December that papillomavirus is a risk factor for tongue cancer and that the virus is sexually transmitted, I resolved not to have sex with strangers any more. I lied to Ruitenbeek about being willing to do so.’

If you didn’t want sex, why did you come to Amsterdam?

‘I thought it could become an interesting film. Using stand-ins, and my wife’s screenplay.’

So no sex scenes were filmed in Amsterdam?

‘No, what Ruitenbeek says about that is a lie. The scene in the trailer was no more than a bit of embracing; only my upper body was bare. Besides, the girl wasn’t bad, but I wasn’t attracted to her. My wife suspected another girl was a whore. When a Korean girl later arrived who didn’t even know there would be filming, I sent Ruitenbeek away. I should have done that earlier.’

A few weeks later — Houellebecq was in Guadeloupe for a film shoot — a technician asked: have you seen this? It was the trailer in which Kirac announced a porn film featuring Houellebecq.

‘My wife in particular found it shocking, because the voice-over says we were going to Morocco on our honeymoon and that she would arrange whores for me there. Come on: we’ve been married for four years, there were no whores involved; it was a book-promotion trip that ultimately fell through because the French government feared for my safety.’

The couple asked Kirac to take down the trailer and brought court proceedings, first in France, then in the Netherlands, to prevent further use of the footage. He says some friends, especially those from conservative Catholic circles, no longer want to see him because of the announcement of a porn film.

But you previously directed La Rivière yourself, a porn film featuring only women. Did they object less to that?

For the first time, he laughs. ‘That is twenty years old. I didn’t have any Catholic friends then.’

Was the Dutch judge’s ruling a surprise?

‘Er… yes.’

Houellebecq then launches into an attack on Ruitenbeek’s lawyer, whose argument, he says, was full of distortions and lies that fooled the judge. The lawyer’s interpretation of the novels Atomised and The Map and the Territory particularly angers him. The lawyer had said that their protagonists closely resemble the writer, meaning that Houellebecq moves between fiction and reality, as Kirac often does too.

For the first time, the writer raises his voice: ‘I have never read anything so stupid. As if I don’t write novels but am always talking about myself.’ Furious descriptions follow, which he later tones down for fear of repercussions in court. ‘Forget what I said about the lawyer. Forget what I said about him afterwards too. At most, you can write that I have sometimes heard more sensible things said about my novels.’

Could the affair with Kirac influence your writing?

That silence again. ‘There is something interesting about it. OnlyFans, for example, which I didn’t know. And the fact that everything in life is spied on and recorded, not only by the police. Kirac uses a strategy of insulting people to get through to them, a little like the Surrealists did.’

Your own radical statements upset quite a few people too.

‘I say what I think. It isn’t to shock people. I would rather they said: perhaps he isn’t entirely wrong when he claims that Islam can be dangerous, or that criminalising prostitution is not a good idea…’

…or says that Trump was a good president.

‘I knew many people wouldn’t like that statement. I simply have polemical opinions. What interests me is that he is the first American president in a long time not to have started a war. That means France cannot be dragged into one either.’

A spring shower rattles against the shrubs in the courtyard garden. Not a good moment to leave. Perhaps a glass of wine after all? The writer walks to the kitchenette, returns with an open bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape and climbs back onto the bed. In Serotonin, Houellebecq has the protagonist say that the Netherlands is not a country but a business. Has Kirac’s behaviour, increasing its own profile by riding on the famous writer’s coattails, strengthened that conviction?

There is no direct answer. Houellebecq says the description came from Dutch filmmaker Erik Lieshout, who filmed an encounter with singer Iggy Pop for To Stay Alive — A Method. ‘Beside him, I feel so humble.’ Again he goes to his computer. Pop’s bronze-toned voice fills the room: A Machine for Loving, a song about his dog Fox, who is immediately replaced by an identical specimen after his death. Houellebecq watches the kaleidoscopic patterns on the screen with fascination. He sniffs, then again.

What is a dog but a machine for loving You introduce him to a human being giving him the mission to love And however ugly, perverse, deformed or stupid this human being might be The dog loves him, the dog loves him

When Pop falls silent, the screensaver appears: Clément, the writer’s corgi, who died in 2011.

Houellebecq does not want to arrange a photo session. ‘I’m in a bad state. I don’t want to see myself like this. I barely sleep; I can’t think about anything else. Find a photograph from just before all this.’

He does not yet know whether he wants to appeal against the ruling. He has little faith in a higher court. We agree to speak by phone once he has decided.

His agent has convinced him it would be useful, Houellebecq says a few days later. In the meantime, he says, he has found the energy to put this sombre histoire into writing. He wants to combine the Kirac affair with another recent controversy. In an interview with philosopher Michel Onfray published in the conservative magazine Front Populaire, Houellebecq said that the French population did not want Muslims to assimilate, but wanted them to stop robbing people and committing violence, or else they would be better off leaving. In that interview, he also predicted a reverse ‘Bataclan’: a terrorist attack on Muslims. ‘Those were very stupid, offensive statements,’ he now believes. ‘That really was my fault. I have apologised. I want to return to what I meant to say.’

The appeal will be heard on 18 April. Will he attend the hearing this time? He is unsure. ‘It will make a good impression if I do. But it will be difficult to see Ruitenbeek again.’ Actor Gérard Depardieu, a close friend of Houellebecq’s, has offered to come along. That would help, the writer says.