Daughter’s suicide and Adjani’s envy: the whole truth about Jane Birkin in her Star diary

The second, final part of Birkin’s diaries, Post-scriptum, was published in Russian, where she talks directly and honestly about her life after breaking up with Serge Gainsbourg. The first part, “Diary of a Monkey”, was released in late 2019.

The beauty of these diaries is that Jane doesn’t play or try to be better than she is: a very rare directness and absence of Photoshop these days! When her eldest daughter Kate committed suicide, Jane closed the diary she had kept since she was eleven and never wrote a line in it again.

What new do we learn about Jane Birkin from her honest story?

“I looked in my closet on Sunday and found that my beautiful plum-colored jacket, my one and only Saint Laurent, was missing. I have to say that all my beautiful cashmere things, my favorite black sweater, a dress made especially for me by Saint Laurent, two swimsuits, still in the package, bought at Repetto with the expectation that I would lose weight – the list is far from complete – disappeared! This Sunday I got my share of thefts, loans, bad grades, lies – everything this year has been filled with – and I rushed to Kate like crazy. I boiled, all I remember was yelling, “Thief!” — and then passed out. I thought they were going to take me to a psychiatric hospital, I was so dizzy! I climbed the wall like a madman, my eyes went dark, I have never seen such a historian. I remember Kate looking at me in surprise as if I were an alien from another planet, then backing away from me in horror as if I were a complete stranger.

“I don’t remember anything. I only remember that I had fun with Isabelle Adjani, she was simply charming, we laughed at a story about gynecologists. To tell the truth, we made everyone present at the festival laugh; on the occasion of such a great success, after finishing one or two bottles of red he drank white wine. I think two decent glasses of vodka with orange juice completed my downfall, I deliberately mistook them behind Jacques’ back, I drank with Ajdani, my accomplice. And then – fog until morning! Well, yes ! But not a drop more, otherwise St. Anne’s course! I know it’s unreasonable, it’s more extreme, but I’m all or nothing, as the song says, and as for smoking, it’s either a four pack, or not even a draft. I can’t control myself, I can’t be sensible. I’m too weak to drink a glass or two.”

“Jacques (director Jacques Douillon, Jane Birkin’s husband after her breakup with Serge Gainsbourg – editor’s note), why aren’t you afraid that I will leave you? Why are you so sure of me? You sleep peacefully. And in my mind I’m packing my bags again. Serge is like my country, I really want to go back there, find peace, die there. In the end, I understand that life without him or without you would end the same. So I saw my Serge again, my England, his paternal gestures, I heard his calm voice – and yet he was sometimes so aggressive, so arrogant – I saw my man peaceful – maybe because he is happy and I am not here, And that is why did you lose sleep Before, the feeling of shame, the feeling of guilt for the suffering caused to him kept me awake, but now I envy him his calmness, his composure. Yes, I am not lying: I envy him this state, and I envy Bamba, who took my place.

“I love beautiful women, but they make me feel my own filth. Some kind of Adjani or Kinski – oh, how colorless, heartless and untalented I feel, so afraid that Jacques or Chereau will want other actresses, that I will get bored, that Jacques will leave with Kinski, and I will be speechless before her beauty. I feel like a sock, put on a beautiful foot, but I make a hole, and they replace me, I’m replaceable. I don’t love myself and I can’t get over it. In short, no talent, no ability, but, my God, what diligence!

“I sent a fax to my mother: “I met a man in the tank that took us to Sarajevo, I seem to love him, it’s unbelievable, he was one of the activists in the 68s, very brave, he has a house, you don’t believe me , next to Bonaparte beach, he is a writer, I would rather tell you all this myself, but I can’t help it, you would like him very much, I just want you to know .

Olivier Rolin is one of those authors who made a particularly strong impression on me, his descriptions in The Invention of Mankind, the book I was reading when we met, and Port Sudan, The Paper Tiger, The Weatherman, should have received all the awards. .. And in life he is funny, prompt and incredibly conceited, I will always love him, maybe he was my last love.

“I stopped journaling on 11 December 2013 when my daughter Kate died. I was unable to continue, as if I no longer had the right to express my thoughts in the state of the fog that enveloped me. I lost faith in myself as a mother. I left the arena. She, who remained English, was my accomplice, sometimes my compass, sometimes my opponent.

How can you keep a journal then? My poor daughters, I was not your helper. Marlowe told me, “You spoke to us, but your mind was somewhere else.” It was roughly like that. I had the feeling that I was living some other, parallel life. The rug is pulled from under my feet. I got sick, why not…”

Author: Anastasia Khanina