Jane Birkin’s death leaves a huge void in music, performance and fashion culture. The London-born actress died last Saturday in Paris, a city where she had become a true icon thanks to the song ‘Je t’aime… moi non plus’ that she did with her partner Serge Gainsbourg and the famous Hermès bag that inspired . A busy and passionate life that she led herself to at the age of 76. Now, her daughters have been able to talk about the causes of her death.
Lou Doillon and Charlotte Gainsbourg issued a statement through social networks this past Monday. In it, they revealed that her mother died from leukemia, a disease that she had been battling for more than a decade. The singer-songwriter and actress detail how Birkin has been under the best care since she suffered a stroke in September 2021, including how the singer wanted to find new dates for the concerts she canceled in May, trusting until the end.
“Jane Birkin passed away after sixteen years of hard-fought battle against the disease,” the statement began. It was in 2013 that leukemia returned to the artist’s body, after she was diagnosed in 2002. 2013 was precisely very hard for the interpreter, after the death of her daughter Kate. Since then, Birkin has been living her day to day as she could until the 2021 stroke, added to other health setbacks that ended up weakening her.
“I’ve had covid six times, it still seems incredible to me… Unfortunately I don’t have any immunity because of the leukemia, I have to be more careful,” the singer of ‘Je t’aime… moi non plus’ confessed at the beginning of anus. As if that weren’t enough, last March she suffered a broken clavicle that forced her to cancel her tour. Even so, Birkin tried until the last possible moment to reschedule her performances so as not to fail her audience.
Born in the Marylebone district of London, in 1946; Jane Birkin would settle in France from the 60s, and she would live in the French country until her last days. During a brief appearance on the set of the film Slogan, directed by Pierre Grimblat, she met the actor and enfant terrible Serge Gainsbourg, with whom she began a passionate love story. From their union came the well-known song ‘Je t’aime… moi non plus’, considered the most erotic in history.
The theme appeared on the 1969 album Jane Birkin-Serge Gainsbourg and was censored in many countries, including Spain, Italy and England. The song was considered too sexually explicit, but despite this or even as a main reason, it became an unprecedented success, selling a million copies in just a few months. Years later, the British would inspire the iconic Birkin Bag, the Hermès wicker bag that became a symbol in the 80s.
