that day when Catherine Deneuve consoled Bambou in the toilet

“I had Étienne Daho on the phone, he told me: ‘Bambou, you should write your truth’,” she remembered. And she did. Caroline Elisabeth Paulus, known as “Bambou”, published her autobiography Step by step in the night published by XO, November 7. The 65-year-old former model details her tormented childhood, her romance with Serge Gainsbourg and her relationships with those close to the singer. On this occasion, she looked back on the moments that marked her life in the morning of France Inter, this Tuesday, November 5.

“For them, I’m just a cameo”

The sixty-year-old particularly remembered an exchange with Catherine Deneuve, who would have consoled her during a social evening. At the time, Bambou received multiple insults and inappropriate comments from people in show business, due to his 36-year difference with Serge Gainsbourg. “For them, I am just another cameo trying to take advantage of Serge,” she wrote in her autobiography.

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She says that during a dinner, she broke down under the mockery, and isolated herself in the toilet. Catherine Deneuve then comes to her aid and consoles her. “They’re all idiots, don’t listen to them,” the actress allegedly told him. Words that left their mark on Bambou, and that she tried to apply throughout her life.

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36 years apart

An interview during which she also recounted her meeting with Serge Gainsbourg. During a Parisian evening, Bambou catches the eye of the latter. The interpreter of Lilac Puncher wants to meet her, but she rejects him. “Fuck this old bastard,” she says. On the set of France Intershe says that the singer has not lost hope. “Serge arrives with his champagne bucket and his bottle, and he says to me: “The old bastard is coming to your table, you sausage.” And then I burst out laughing. It was gone.” The model quickly falls under the spell of the interpreter of Anamour. “As soon as I met him, he let go of the showbiz man, and he became the human being that few people know,” she said.

A human being whose relatives she also adopted. Bambou thus created a strong friendship with the artist's former partner, Jane Birkin, and her daughter, Charlotte Gainsbourg, whom she considers like a little sister. “The Gainsbourg clan has always been there, with Jane, I accepted it immediately,” she explained. I never had any jealousy.” Jane Birkin, a friend whom she accompanied until her death on July 16, 2023.