She stole the show with her portrayal of hypersexual Chloe in The White Lotus, portraying the model with a lust for young men but dating a much older man.
Now Charlotte Le Bon has revealed that she nearly ended up in a real life scenario that would have mirrored scenes from the HBO show – admitting she unwittingly found herself at a sex party.
The French-Canadian actress, 38, revealed she was 19 and had just come out of a long-term relationship when she met a ‘tall hunk’ who asked her out.
She recalled on the Small Talk podcast: ‘We were talking on the phone and I think we went to the movies together once, but nothing happened. It was very chaste, very respectful.’
Yet things took a turn when he invited her to spend the weekend at a chalet with her friends, telling them it would be for a ‘party’.
On the way, she was surprised to see he stopped off at a pharmacy and picked up condoms, with Charlotte recalling: ‘We hadn’t even kissed so I said, “Are you not embarrassed?” He’s like, “Better safe than sorry,” which I thought was kind of gross.’
The White Lotus’ Charlotte Le Bon details her real life experience of being unwittingly dragged to a sex party, where her date slept with his ex and other couple
In The White Lotus Charlotte stars in one of the most controversial scenes, which sees herself engineer an orgy brothers Lochlan and Saxon Ratliff, played by Sam Nivola (pictured) and Patrick Schwarzenegger
The resulting bedroom scene has become the series most controversial and sparked a slew of complaints (Patrick pictured in the scene)
Charlotte admitted she wanted to turn back but couldn’t given they were already on their way, but things turned even weirder when they arrived at the chalet.
‘We get to the party, his ex comes over and he decides to make love with her in the bathroom,’ she recalled.
‘And then he goes upstairs with another couple of friends and they make love together – a foursome.
‘I witnessed a little bit, I could hear them. But I was downstairs just waiting for the evening to end.
‘I remember going home the next day and calling him and really insulting him, saying he was a really big d*****bag.
‘He apologised vaguely, but I think he was a little proud of himself.’
Charlotte did not know it at the time, but the incident was a case of life imitating art.
Soon after winning the part of Chloe in the third series of White Lotus, she was handed a script featuring a messy group scene in which one of the participants is not keen to get involved.
Chloe dates sinister millionaire Greg ‘Gary’ White, played by Jon Gries, in the Thailand-based drama, and she befriends actress Aimee Lou Wood’s character Chelsea, who she hopes is a kindred spirit.
But their diverging libidos become clear when Chloe engineers an orgy with brothers Lochlan and Saxon Ratliff, played by Sam Nivola and Patrick Schwarzenegger.
The resulting bedroom scene has become the series most controversial and sparked a slew of complaints.
Chloe dates sinister millionaire Greg ‘Gary’ White, played by Jon Gries, in the Thailand-based drama, but decides to sleep with younger men at the resort
In real life, Charlotte claimed she was a bit of a prude growing up, despite being raised by two actors in Canada’s French speaking city, Montreal.
She mused: ‘I remember, when someone told me what oral sex was, it disgusted me. I said to myself, but I’m never going to do that in my life.
‘I didn’t want to have that information.’
Far from being the sex symbol she channels in White Lotus, Charlotte says she felt awkward about her looks and struggled to fit in at school.
She said: ‘The cool guys talked to me, but I wasn’t invited to the cool parties.
‘I talked to just about everyone, but I couldn’t really find my group. It made me suffer a little when I was a teenager. I couldn’t find myself socially.
‘My memory of middle school is that pretty girls were saved and I wasn’t considered a pretty girl in middle school.
‘Kids would say things like, “We could break your legs, your legs are like matchsticks, we could snap them in two,” that kind of thing.
‘They would say, “You’re anorexic” even though it’s not true.
‘I did everything I could to try to have thicker legs. So sometimes I would wear two pairs of pants to try to thicken my legs a little.
‘And I was obsessed with girls who had muscular calves, I thought they were beautiful. So I did a lot of calf raises to try to have the same.’
Far from being the sex symbol she channels in White Lotus, Charlotte says she used to feel awkward about her looks
Despite her lack of confidence, Charlotte took up modelling when she was 16, but she soon found she hated the industry.
She said: ‘I was scouted in the street and at first, I was a little scared, in fact, I didn’t particularly want to.
‘And it was my parents who told me that it was a way to be able to become financially independent quickly, to travel, things like that. So I started doing that in Montreal but I hated it.
‘I was very, very often alone. I was a model for seven years, I didn’t make a single girlfriend, because it’s empty.
‘I think it’s a job that is extremely dehumanizing. They just put clothes on your face, they take pictures of you, they do your makeup without asking your opinion.
‘They put clothes on you without asking if you like them or not, they take pictures of you in positions without asking if you’re comfortable or not.
‘And then in the end, it’s you, it’s your image, but you have no right over that, what you look like, and all that, how the photo will be used. It also doesn’t matter if I had things to offer, in fact, my creativity had absolutely no weight, no value. I was just an object.
‘But it opened a lot of doors for me, and above all, it allowed me to move to France and this is where it all began.’
The White Lotus cast (L-R) Sam Nivola, Charlotte David Bernad, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Parker Posey, Mike White, Walton Goggins, Lisa, Sarah Catherine Hook, Leslie Bibb and Jason Isaacs
Following brief spells in Tokyo and New York, Charlotte settled in Paris in 2010, where she shot adverts before switching to acting.
Her first film role was in the 2012 French comedy Asterix and Obelix: God Save Britannia.
In 2014 she starred as Yves Saint Laurent’s muse Victoire Doutreleau in the biographical film Yves Saint Laurent, earning a nomination for a César Award.
In 2015, she dubbed the voice of Joy in both the French and Quebec French versions of the Pixar film Inside Out.
She starred alongside Christian Bale in the 2016 film, The Promise and she shot the action movie Bastille Day with Idris Elba the same year.
But it is her riveting role in the Mike White-directed White Lotus that has turned her into one of the most talked about stars in the English-speaking world.
Sadly, Charlotte says the role also led to ribbing about her looks, similar to the abuse endured by her English co-star Aimee.
She suffered a chipped tooth when she was five and never had it fixed and says the result is she has been left with a ‘pirate tooth.’
Charlotte revealed her role in The White Lotus also led to ribbing about her teeth, similar to the abuse endured by her English co-star Aimee (right)
Charlotte said: ‘Yesterday, I saw a funny post from someone who commented on my teeth, because I do have bad teeth.
‘Someone wrote, “Oh my god, look at these terrible, terrible teeth, they look like an old fence.”
‘There are a lot of pictures where I’m on the red carpet and I’m terrified.
‘I don’t like it at all. And there are lots of photos where I’m on the red carpet, and it’s just her sticking out – my pirate tooth.
‘But I accept it. I think it’s great that she’s like that. She wants the light more than me. That is to say, when I’m shy, she comes out on her own.
‘And even if I had perfect teeth, we’d find something else. There’s always something.’
