Jane Birkin, Actress and Singer, Dies at 76

Jane Birkin, the singer and actress who rose to fame in the late 1960s as the lover of Serge Gainsbourg and became a beloved figure in her adopted France, has died. She was 76.

The French culture minister announced the news on Sunday following reports Le Parisien newspaper and BFM television that said Birkin had been found dead at her home in Paris. She had suffered a mild stroke in 2021.

Although born in London, Birkin would find fame singing in French, and her duet with Gainsbough on the sexually explicit song ‘Je t’aime…moi non plus’ (which was banned in several countries). made her a household name around the world. The song was recorded in 1968, just months after the pair — Birkin then 22-year-old and Gainsbourg 40 — had met on the set of the film. Sloganforging a turbulent relationship that would last 13 years and see them become France’s most famous couple.

“He and I became the most famous of couples in that strange way because Je t’hime and because we stuck together for 13 years and he went on being my best friend until the day he died,” Birkin told News84Media in 2006.

Among Birkin’s acting credits are the 1966 classic Blow upwhich sparthe 1972 adaptation of Death on the Nile and 1982’s Evil Under the Sun.