A figure of cinema and music died. This Sunday, July 16, 2023, Jane Birkin died at the age of 76. According to information from the Parisian, she was found lifeless at her home. She leaves behind her family, as well as thousands of grieving fans, in France and in Great Britain.
Born on December 14, 1946 in Marylebone, London, to a military father and an actress mother, the one who would become “The favorite Englishwoman of the French” was rocked in the artistic world from an early age, so much so that ‘she quickly developed a passion for comedy. At the age of 18, she made her debut on the big screen, in the Richard Lester film The Knack… and how to get it. Her career then took off very quickly and she obtained a role in Blow Up, directed by Michelangelo Antonioni and Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
In 1965, she married the English composer John Barry with whom she had a daughter, Kate Barry in 1967. But quickly, the two spouses divorced. But shortly after this episode, on the set of the film Slogan, Jane Birkin meets the second man in her life, Serge Gainsbourg.
From the fruit of their union was born another child, now famous, Charlotte Gainsbourg. Alongside her companion, Jane Birkin then had the opportunity to launch into music with their joint single Je t’aime… moi non plus, released in 1969. After that, she had a string of successes and several of her albums were even sacred gold records.
But their romance did not last forever and Serge Gainsbourg and his partner separated at the end of the 1970s. A few years later, in 1980, she met the father of her third daughter Lou Doillon, the director Jacques Doillon, but they separated in 1992, ten years after the birth of their child.
Throughout her life, Jane Birkin has gone through many dramas and misfortunes. One of them was particularly hard to bear for the Franco-British star.
December 11, 2013 was a fateful day for Jane Birkin. She faces every mother’s nightmare and learns of the death of her daughter Kate Barry. In the documentary Jane Birkin and us, broadcast in September 2022, the singer spoke about this tragic event. “I found that I no longer had the right to exist, that I had failed”, said she confided.
On the set of We are live, January 9, 2021, the artist also insisted on this episode, and how much he had marked it. “I said nothing for 7 years, I wrote nothing, I stopped my diary the day she died, because I found that I had nothing more to say…”.
On August 29, 2021, Jane Birkin suffered a stroke. After that, she was forced to cancel her tour and the doctors recommended a four-month convalescence. “I’ve never been scared for myself. When you’re the accident victim, it’s not scary at all. It wasn’t fun for my loved ones, but I didn’t suffer in any way.”
Despite this accident and her age at the time of the events, Jane Birkin quickly recovered and even resumed her tour in January 2022. Despite a few rare appearances in 2023 on the César red carpet and at the Enfoirés, the he actress and singer had to give up the stage again to preserve her fragile health. “I have always been a great optimist, and realize that I still need a little time to be able to perform on stage again and with you,” she said in a press release last May.
After the announcement of the death of Jane Birkin, the causes of her death were still unknown. 24 hours later, the daughters of the singer and actress, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Lou Doillon, spoke for the first time. In a statement shared in the media and on social networks, they spoke about their mother who died in her home, located rue d’Assas in Paris.
“Jane Birkin has passed away after 16 years of a fierce battle with the disease, since her stroke in September 2021, her family and the wonderful caregivers have been by her side night and day”, can we read in the publication, before learning more about the last moments of his life. “For a few days, she had been walking again, was motivated to reschedule her Olympia and had decided to regain her independence. This first evening, alone, will have been the last. She had decided it”.
Of this statement signed jointly by the daughters of Jane Birkin, the last sentence would imply that the ex-girlfriend of Serge Gainsbourg would have ended his life. Faced with the multiple reactions of Internet users, the entourage of the star clarified things, as assured by the musical journalist of the culture department of RTL, Steven Bellery. “Contacted by RTL, the entourage of Jane Birkin specifies that there is no innuendo in the last sentence of the press release”.
A few hours later, “the singer’s entourage clarified Monday evening to AFP that the death was of natural cause”, indicates the journalist Jean-François Guyot on his Twitter page. As for Jane Birkin’s funeral, the ceremony will be held on Monday morning July 24 at the Saint Roch church in Paris, according to BFMTV. Finally, a final farewell will take place “in the intimacy of family and friends, by invitation”, said his entourage to Agence France Presse.
