Serge Gainsbourg: His hated companion Bambou of the couple formed by Lio and Alain Chamfort, this stay in Los Angeles which went wrong

Serge Gainsbourg: His hated companion Bambou of the couple formed by Lio and Alain Chamfort, this stay in Los Angeles which went wrong

The life of Bambou, real name Caroline Elisabeth Paulus, had everything to be the subject of a novel. This is what she has just done since she published her autobiography Pas à pas dans la nuit (published by XO) and looks back on her painful childhood, her lost youth and her life with the contemporary poet Serge Gainsbourg, until the death of the latter in 1991, his last and only love. By meeting him in a Parisian nightclub in 1980, the young woman damaged by life wrote a new chapter. If this period remains complex and tortured, it is no less rich and intense with the birth of his son Lulu but not only that. Bambou meets a crowd of artists, mixing his existence with the artist and sharing memories of a bygone era. Like this trip to Los Angeles with the singer-songwriter but also with Alain Chamfort and Lio… Excerpts.

On a trip to America to record an album with Alain Chamfort – Love year zero -, Serge Gainsbourg summons his partner Bambou to join him because he needs her. “In Los Angeles, it's the big showbiz trip: Rolls on Sunset Boulevard, house in Hollywood with swimming pool, alcohol, boredom, sad parties and arguments.” He has difficulty working but Bambou quickly understands why he called him in: “Chamfort came with Lio, which was not planned – that's the reason why Serge asked me to come.“

However, the arrival of Bambou doesn't help matters in his own words: “Lio seems to hate me at first sight. She makes me understand my place. No doubt for her, as for others, I am nothing more than Serge's bitch – to say the least.” An opinion that does not affect her, she was not interested in showbiz people that much. She thus digests the fact that Alain Chamfort does not want Bambou to set foot in the studio, until Serge Gainsbourg discovers that Lio is coming there, enough to annoy him and make him suddenly leave the hotel with Bambou. Which will not prevent him from writing the title. Bamboo… for Chamfort, future success of the singer of Aviation.

The sulfurous underbelly of the couple formed by Alain Chamfort and Lio

Alain Chamfort also returned to this famous stay in the city of angels in the pages of the magazine The Point in 2018. At the time, the star of Bananasplit was 17 years old and he was 30 years old and married, father of a 3-year-old daughter, baptized Clémentine, and his wife was expecting twins. Although the couple never made things official, they collaborated musically on several occasions.

In this Point interview, we learn that Serge Gainsbourg would have suggested a threesome to the young singer, obviously before Bambou arrived: “Lio was very seduced by Serge. He was so charismatic! Finally, it’s still Gainsbourg! She wasn't very wild either. Brilliant, sparkling, she was not afraid. One evening, the three of us were at the hotel and Serge started to approach her. He was a little heavy-handed when he told her: 'In the cinema, we kiss like that…' I wasn't against having a threesomebut I didn't yet know her well enough to know what the boundaries of our relationship were, so I didn't intervene. But she didn't agree at all and yelled at him!“

From Serge Gainsbourg, Lio will make very harsh remarks on Arte Radio in 2020: “Today, I came back from Gainsbourg, who is a stalkerquite simply. Someone who was not at all cool with girls and who was a Weinstein of song, in a way.“The 1980s are now a long way away…