Inside Marianne Faithfull’s chic Paris apartment

She was once known for living a life of excess, filled with all the trappings of wealth and fame. 

But now, aged 70 and increasingly frail, Marianne Faithfull lives in rather more understated surroundings, although she retains the glamour of her youth.

A new profile of Mick Jagger’s former lover offers an insight into how the icon of ’60s hedonism lives now; having exchanged Swinging London for a humble Paris apartment, and rock and roll parties for time spent with grandchildren and solitary walks around Montparnasse. 

Marianne also reveals in The Maverick Soul, a collaboration between interior decorator Miv Watts – the mother of actress Naomi – and photographer Hugh Stewart, how she is often struck by loneliness in her Left Bank flat filled with knick-knacks, mementos and works of art, and how she refuses to dwell on the ‘stupid’ and oft-repeated rumours of an incident involving Marianne, Mick, and a Mars Bar.

Timeless: Marianne wears her pajamas at her desk in her Paris apartment. Porcelain tea sets are on display in the glass cabinet

Sixties icon: Marianne with Mick Jagger following a court appearance in 1969

With Keith Richards' lover Anita Pallenberg in 1967

Sixties icon: Marianne with Mick Jagger outside court in 1969. Right, with Keith Richards’ lover Anita Pallenberg in 1967

Home comforts: An avid reader, Marianne keeps half of her bed covered in books to stop people sitting on it, she said

Home comforts: An avid reader, Marianne keeps half of her bed covered in books to stop people sitting on it, she said

Decades on from her days on the road with the Stones, Marianne’s nod to that famously turbulent period of her life takes the form of a framed collage of defamatory reports about the notorious tale – a gift from the artist Richard Hamilton. 

Marianne and the Mars Bar: The wild night that became rock folklore 

It began with a drugs raid on Keith Richards’ country mansion in Sussex in the ’60s. 

Legend has it police discovered Marianne – said to have been naked but for a fur rug – with Mick Jagger, who was eating a Mars Bar from her vagina. 

People close to Faithfull – who herself describes the stories as ‘stupid’ in Maverick Soul – said there was no truth in the tale.

Richards himself said in a 2010 memoir that while there were Mars Bars there – as craving sugar is a side effect of taking LSD – the story about Marianne was a myth.  

As for her tumultuous love affair with Jagger, with whom she spent four years in the late 1960s, the fact she chose to hang a photograph of the pair in the lavatory seems telling. ‘Best place for it,’ she told the author. ‘I have no nostalgia about that time.’ 

Writing in the book, Watts describes Marianne’s ‘tiny flat’ as being ‘quite humble and full of family heirlooms’, noting the singer is ‘not rich by rock star standards’. 

The profile suggests Faithfull lives a somewhat solitary lifestyle in her adopted home in France. Watts notes her cane and her Chanel handbag as two essential components of her days, which typically start with a stroll along the boulevards of Paris. 

The singer and songwriter, who recently performed at the city’s Bataclan concert hall one year after it was targeted by terrorists, reportedly urged Watts to ‘come back and see me soon, darling,’ adding: ‘I get very lonely and love our little chats.’ 

The voracious reader also joked about the deliberate placement of a pile of books on one side of her bed. 

‘It keeps people from sitting on the bed, let alone even thinking of getting in it,’ said the woman whose personal life once made headlines around the globe. 

Marianne suffers with pain as a result of broken bones in recent years, and relies on her walking stick to assist her on her morning walks, when getting on stage, and, the author notes, ‘to make a point’.  

Memories: Family photographs sit next to a hand-written note from Keith Richards penned  on personalised stationary emblazoned with a skull and cross bones: 'My Dear Marianne, one love to you. A really good record! A Happy new year!!'

Memories: Family photographs sit next to a hand-written note from Keith Richards penned on personalised stationary emblazoned with a skull and cross bones: ‘My Dear Marianne, one love to you. A really good record! A Happy new year!!’

Chic: The small terrace is covered in plants

A pile of books is stacked on top of a chair next to a dark wood desk

Chic: The small terrace is covered in plants, left. Right, a pile of books is stacked on top of a chair next to a dark wood desk

Art hangs everywhere in her apartment, including pieces by Martin Sharp, Francis Bacon and Marlene Dumas.

There is also memorabilia that recall her years spent travelling and performing with the Rolling Stones.

Despite her self-confessed lack of nostalgia for her years with Jagger, she appears to still be fond with Keith Richards, with whom she also had a sexual relationship.

The Maverick Soul by Miv Watts and Hugh Stewart, published by Hardie Grant, £30

Glimpse inside: The large rooms of Faithfull’s apartment were photographed for a portrait for a new book, pictured right

On one side table sits a hand-written note from Keith Richards, penned in capital letters on personalised stationary emblazoned with a skull and cross bones: ‘My Dear Marianne, one love to you. A really good record! A Happy new year!!’

Faithfull was born to Baroness Eva Erisso, the descendant of an Austro-Hungarian aristocratic family, and Major Robert Glynn Faithfull, a British wartime spy, walked out when his daughter was six to join a commune, in London, but now lives happily in Paris.

Faithfull lost custody of her son, Nicholas, during the throes of her heroin addiction in the 1970s, but is said to now enjoy a close bond with her grandchildren.

She also has a ‘supportive’ relationship with her first husband and Nicholas’ father, artist John Dunbar, to whom she was married for a year in the mid-1960s. 

She later married punk rocker Ben Brierly and American writer Giorgio Della Terza, whom she divorced in 1991. 

Faithfull describes her life as ‘often lonely’, although her days are full. She spends the morning walking her dogs, one of whom appears in the photographs, and the afternoon writing songs and planning concerts.  

Speaking to Watts, she added: ‘I was going to write another book. But f**k it! I can’t write. But I can write a song and that is who I am!’ 

The Maverick Soul by Miv Watts and Hugh Stewart, published by Hardie Grant, £30 

 



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