Until now, she has been the most discreet of the 3 Bs (Bardot-Birkin-Bambou) who have crossed the life of Serge Gainsbourg. We know very little about Bambou, except that she was the last companion of the man with the head of cabbage and the one who gave him a son, Lulu. But, at the end of 2024, at the age of 65, Bambou reveals, in an autobiography entitled “Step by step in the night”, the first part of his life, “half of my life in fact. I was 32 the day before when Serge died,” she explains.
And then on March 2, 1991, Gainsbourg leaves
Thirty years ago, Serge Gainsbourg was found lifeless in his Parisian apartment on rue de Verneuil. He was only 62 years old. Two of his biographers, Bertrand Dicale and Bernard Pascuito provide their insight
A life laid bare
Over the course of 300 pages, we discover how the woman named Caroline Élisabeth Paulus became Serge's latest muse, how she went through a childhood of abuse and violence at the hands of her foster family, whom she calls ” the Thénardiers”, but also of his mother throughout his adolescence. We learn how she always felt different and “ugly”, rejected by those who should have loved her. She recounts her suicide attempts as a child and the heroin she used before she was even 18.
Photo Patrick Mesner
Bambou and Serge on the Côte d'Azur in 1990.
She gives her version of the meeting with Gainsbourg at the Élysée-Matignon, a chic nightclub in the early 1980s, an anecdote that everyone says they know. “He called me a sausage, even though I always found myself very ugly. I laughed. » We also follow her love story, with its ups and downs, at a time when many considered her to be the latest beautiful plant that Gainsbarre had unearthed. They were thirty-four years apart.
From anecdote to anecdote, page after page, we discover an extraordinary personality, the one who seduced the great Serge, who took this slender young woman with an enigmatic look under his wing.
Photo AFP
Bambou and Gainsbourg in 1986 in Paris, six years after their meeting. Lulu was born that year
XO Editions
The couple in Nice, with Lulu, photographed by a fan
Photo Thomas Coex/AFP
Serge Gainsbourg's son and partner, Lulu and Bambou, pose with a stamp bearing the singer's image, May 17, 2001 at the Olympia in Paris
Until now, only those close to him knew about this journey marked by resilience. Among them, Étienne Daho, who, during a telephone conversation, pushed her to tell the story. She does not write alone, but in collaboration with the writer Jean-Daniel Baltassat: “It's good to do things together. This prevents us from being scattered,” explains Bambou, admitting that he had to sort his story so that it was limited to 300 pages. “But it wasn’t that complicated. I knew exactly what I wanted. »
Links with the South-West
From the first page, Bambou sets the scene, that of a baby abandoned in a bed with white bars, in the premises of Public Assistance. Bambou was not born there, but in Lot-et-Garonne, in Sainte-Livrade-sur-Lot, in the city welcoming French people repatriated from Indochina (Cafi). His mother, Vietnamese of Chinese origin, was in a relationship with a legionnaire engaged in the Indochina War. She had just arrived at the camp, already the mother of four children.
“I went shopping at the Asian grocery store in the center. And there, the people who still lived there recognized me. They knew who I was. They showed me the house where I was born”
Bambou has no memory of this period. One of his older sisters told him about this brief episode of life which lasted a little over six months. Bambou gathered some additional information years later, while visiting the Cafi, an experience she does not recount in “Step by Step in the Night”.
“I was friends with Chaplin’s granddaughters who had property in the area. I went shopping at the Asian grocery store in the center. And there, the people who still lived there recognized me. They knew who I was. They showed me the house where I was born, invited me to eat, forbade me to pay for what I had bought at the grocery store. They were adorable. It touched me a lot. »
XO Editions
Bamboo at the age of five. She went through a childhood of abuse
Indochina War: the Cafi, memory of an oversight
In the wake of the defeat of Diên Bien Phu, decolonization or the beginning of the decomposition of the French empire produced the first repatriates in French history. A thousand of them will come to suffer their exile in a camp at Sainte-Livrade far from “Indo” on “the path to oblivion”. Narrative
Sainte-Livrade is not the only family link that Bambou has with the South-West. By chance, one of his aunts, on his father's side, settled in the Basque Country. She goes there several times, in search of his story, so as not to burden Lulu, her son, with his traumas. “I haven’t been back since Covid. My aunt is old now, it has become complicated. »
This woman, who is one of the only members of her family to open her arms to him, will take him to her father (who died today) living in the Landes. He is 60 years old, lives on a farm far from everything, a ruin that he renovated in the middle of the forest. She stays by his side for three days and learns another part of his story.
“Dad is dead”
“Step by Step in the Night” ends with the death of Serge Gainsbourg, the day after his birthday. It is she who discovers him in his bed and warns the firefighters. But when she returns home, after the body has been removed, her son, already informed by the media, tells her: “Dad is dead. » It is only at this moment that she really realizes that Serge Gainsbourg is no longer in this world.
“There will be no volume II,” warns Bambou. I dedicated this book to Lulu. Even though he knows my story, he doesn't know a lot of things I've written. I don’t know if he will read it, he’s not a great reader…” If she refutes the idea of continuing her autobiography, Bambou does not rule out returning to writing. “One day, who knows…”
“Step by step in the night” by Bambou published by XO Éditions.
Key dates
1er mars 1959 : birth in Sainte-Livrade (Lot-et-Garonne) at the Cafi (City of reception for French repatriates Garonne) at the Cafi (City of reception of French repatriates from Indochina). A year later, she was entrusted by the Dass to a host family living in Morvan.
Summer 1972: her mother comes back to pick her up to live with her and her sisters. Bamboo leaves for Paris. Start of odd jobs. At 16, Bambou left home. At 17, she landed her first modeling contract.
1980 : she is 18 years old, she meets Serge Gainsbourg.
1981 : she accompanied Serge Gainsbourg to Los Angeles, where he wrote a song “Bambou” for Alain Chamfort. It's a success. She worked for the first time in collaboration with Serge by becoming a model for the book “Bambou and the Dolls”.
January 5, 1986: birth of Lulu.
2 mars 1991 : death of Serge Gainsbourg. Bambou had just turned 32
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