Brigitte Bardot will celebrate her 90th birthday on September 28. On this occasion, her friend Jean-Louis Remilleux recounted memories of their friendship in the latest issue of Paris Match…
In 1967, after she had been married to photographer Gunter Sachs for a year, Brigitte Bardot met Serge Gainsbourg to record his hit “Harley Davidson”. Intimidated by each other, a few glasses of champagne finally broke the ice and gave birth to a sublime romance. For three months, these two free spirits would embody French love.
In 1986, the two artists met again on rue Verneuil in Paris. Time had separated them, Brigitte Bardot and Gunter Sachs had been separated for seventeen years. In the latest issue of Paris Match, on newsstands this Thursday, September 26, Jean-Louis Remilleux recounted this tender reunion between “Gainsbarre” and “Bichette”.
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Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot in the street in 1967 in Paris.
AGENCY / BESTIMAGE / © AGENCY / BESTIMAGE
If the singer wanted to meet her, it was to make a very specific request. He wanted to release the original version of “Je t’aime, moi non plus”, recorded in 1967 with BB but removed at the last moment from the 33-rpm.
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“Listen to me, Serge, stop drinking!”
They met at the “Galant Verre”, the singer’s ice cream shop. Faced with Serge’s descent, Brigitte Bardot did not hold back her words: “Listen to me, Serge, stop drinking! You are destroying yourself, it is unbearable. You are the best of your generation, why lose yourself in drink like that? It is a monstrous waste!”
In France, in Paris, Serge GAINBOURG at home, in his private mansion on rue de Verneuil, posing in front of a portrait of Brigitte BARDOT. May 1985.
Michel Ristroph via Bestimage / © Michel Ristroph via Bestimage
Jean-Louis Remilleux recalled the reaction of the offender: “Gainsbourg made his bad-day pout, swore that he would control himself, that he would try not to drink anymore in memory of that evening. To make up for it, he invited us to a private concert at his home. At the piano, tenderly, he sang Brigitte his last songs. A moment of grace.”
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Between Brigitte and Serge: I love you, me too
In 2018, director Christian Brincourt recalled some of the actress’s confidences in the pages of Paris Match: “Brigitte confided in me about Serge: “Between him and me it was an immense passion like a forest fire that burns everything.”
Through the filmmaker’s memories, we learn that the wonderful song “Je t’aime, moi non plus” was not written for Jane Birkin, but for Brigitte Bardot, who said about Serge: “From that day, that night, that moment, no other being, no other man, mattered to me. He was my love, he gave me life back. He made me beautiful. I was his muse.”
In France, in Paris, Serge GAINSBOURG and Brigitte BARDOT, in a parody of BONNIE AND CLYDE on a set on November 15, 1967.
Bestimage / © Bernard LEGUAY
Her marriage to Gunter Sachs caught up with her. Christian Brincourt remembers: “Gunter threatened his wife with a legal scandal that would permanently tarnish her image if the song was put on sale and broadcast on the airwaves. Gainsbourg therefore agreed to remove the song from his 33-rpm record. In 1969, Serge offered the ballad to the new woman in his life, Jane Birkin, who in turn recorded it and made it a worldwide success.”
