A star of the 60s, Brigitte Fontaine has not yet hung up the microphone. At 85, what has become of the artist? Does she have health problems?
Nougat, Like on the radioor even Pipe… Do you remember Brigitte Fontaine’s hits? The rebellious singer has a career spanning over 60 years and she’s not done yet!
Brigitte Fontaine didn’t hang up the microphone!
Brigitte Fontaine is not ready to hang up the microphone. The octogenarian is releasing a new album next October – her twentieth – entitled Pick Up. The first title taken from it is Cantilenain which she discusses a subject that haunts her: death.
At 85, Brigitte Fontaine is far from having said her last word. The star is still making people talk about her. In March 2024, France 5 broadcast the documentary Brigitte Fontaine, waking up the living signed Benoît Mouchart, Yann Orhan and Aurélien Guégan, which looks back at the artist’s humor and poetry and details how she left her mark on her generation.
Brigitte Fontaine, suffering from a “serious nervous and psychological illness”
As a reminder, Brigitte Fontaine never had children. Thanks to her friend Jacques Higelin, who died in 2018, she met in 1968 the man who changed her life: her husband Areski Belkacem. A musician and composer, he has accompanied the artist since her beginnings. The couple lives in an apartment on rue Saint-Louis en l’Île in the 4th arrondissement of Paris, where the singer of Ah, how beautiful life is love spending their time writing. And between them, they seem to have found a balance, as the man confided in 2020 during the lockdown: “We’re peaceful at home. Brigitte and I share the household chores equally. She’s the one who makes the mess and I’m the one who cleans up afterwards.”
On the health side, the octogenarian singer is battling a ““quite serious nervous and mental illness”. Interviewed by France Inter on June 19, 2023, Brigitte Fontaine said she thought “very often“to death, and revealed her post-portem wish: to be buried in a common grave!”Because the more the merrier!” she said humorously.
