This Thursday, July 21, 2022 marks Charlotte Gainsbourg’s birthday. At 51, she was first known as a famous girl before making her own way and becoming a recognized artist in her turn. Before being an actress, singer and now the mother of three children, Ben, Alice and Jo Attal – who looks exactly like her father Yvan Attal – Charlotte Gainsbourg was above all in people’s minds the daughter of Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg. But by the way, when the illustrious artist died on March 2, 1991, what did she inherit?
It’s in the columns of the newspaper The Parisianin 2018, that the actress had evoked with great modesty the succession of the interpreter of I love you too. A moment complicated by the lack of organization of the latter and that had to manage his four children. The renowned artist is the father of Charlotte Gainsbourg, the fruit of his love with Jane Birkin, but also of Lucien, alias Lulu Gainsbourg, born in 1986 from his relationship with his last companion Bambou. And he also had two elders, more discreet, Natacha and Paul, from his second marriage with Françoise-Antoinette-Michèle Pancraz (Béatrice). Together they had to manage the legacy of their father, who had left no directive to believe the confidences of Charlotte Gainsbourg.
Between “deluge” and legacy
The actress and companion of Yvan Attal thus confided to our colleagues: “It came back to the children, we shared everything. […] We managed.” “My father left us in a total blur. That’s what he wanted: after me, the deluge. And it was, we didn’t know what to do. I was 19 years old, my brothers and sisters barely older, my little brother Lulu was 5 years old… And we had requests coming from everywhere“, she continued. In this financial and musical heritage, one could count almost 500 songsbut also its Parisian home, rue de Verneuil in the 7th arrondissement. Charlotte Gainsbourg wished for a moment to redeem it, which the other members of the clan opposed. Then, it recently became a museum in memory of their illustrious father.
350,000 to 450,000 euros per year
In this puzzling legacy, there was also Serge Gainsbourg’s publishing company: Melody Nelson Publishing. A company created by the singer in the early 1970s to manage the rights related to his works. Charlotte Gainsbourg’s father had also sold 20% of the capital to Jane Birkin during his lifetime, reports Gala.fr. Since his death, the sums collected have been divided equally between his four children, while the turnover of the company “is around between 350,000 and 450,000 euros per year“, always according to our colleagues.