After much hesitation, Charlotte Gainsbourg decided to present to the general public the legendary residence of Serge Gainsbourg, located rue de Verneuil, in Paris.
A beautiful tribute. While she recently lost her illustrious mother, Jane Birkin, who left this world on Sunday July 16, 2023, at the age of 76, Charlotte Gainsbourg now pays tribute to his father. And Yvan Attal’s fiancée didn’t do things by halves since she decided to show the intimacy of Serge Gainsbourg by opening the doors of his famous residence located at 5 bis rue de Verneuil, in the 7th arrondissement of Paris. A choice which is however not trivial for the discreet Charlotte Gainsbourg, as she explained in an interview with Libération: “When I moved to New York after my sister Kate died [Barry, ndlr], I thought, either I sell it, or I make a museum, or I show it by appointment, but I stop this mourning. Because it was about mourning. Unfinished mourning.”
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Visitors can now enter the intimacy of the singer of “Je t’aime moi non plus”, who lived in this residence of 130 m2 until her disappearance in 1991. A lovely gift that Charlotte Gainsbourg gave to anonymous people, but also to herself. As explained to our colleagues, she was thus able to reconnect with her past by reclaiming the places : “I was grateful, respectful, but so respectful that I didn’t dare be too curious. I was a bit of an intruder, who didn’t allow myself to open anything, and especially not to search.”And added: “I opened the house in hopes of letting go. In fact, I don’t give up, but I support the projects. And maybe now I’ll be able to truly be my father’s daughter.”
“My ritual was rue de Verneuil”
Over the years, after the disappearance of Serge Gainsbourg, Charlotte has somewhat protected the house of his illustrious father. “When my father died, I understood that I could not go to the cemetery, because there were always too many people, so my ritual was rue de Verneuil. I wanted the place to stay intact”, she confided to our colleagues at Vogue. By opening the doors of this residence to the general public, the mother of Ben (1997), Alice Jane (2002) and Joe (2011) thus desecrated the place in a way and was thus able to bring it back to life: “This place is magical. People can see what Serge Gainsbourg has created. What is on the walls is a reflection of what mattered. He has always known how to mix the modern and the old, hunting down and acquiring objects at the cutting edge of modernity. For those who only know his music and public persona, seeing his interior is very interesting.”
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