It sounds like you work as a janitor, or superintendent, who is doing your job, when you clean up barf, or unclog a toilet, or pick up dog shit. Obviously you feel that you are somehow above this. I am not personally claiming “deep personal humiliation”. She expresses her sentiments well in the clip. She is not laughing about it, she is not happy when she tells the story, it is not a lighthearted anecdote.

“Yeah, there’s a deep power imbalance, it’s called class. Something she will never know”= WTF ?!?

Newsflash: believe it or not, there are still people today, who live in North America, who do not understand how a woman actually gets pregnant. Like they don’t understand the physical mechanics.So, yes, it is completely possible for a 16 year old girl, in 1966(ish) to not understand the double meaning.

Yes, Serge Gainsbourg might be a genius, yes he might be an unlikely star, yes he might have “loved” beautiful women — but that doesn’t mean that he respected them or treated them with kindness. On one level this situation is funny, in a horrible way. On another it is incredibly cruel, a joke that went way too far, for too long, at the expense of a young girl. He didn’t chose an ugly girl to perform this, or ask an adult woman to do this, or an otherwise established performer. Years, later, he can’t read the lyrics with a straight face — and has no shame or remorse about what he did. 30 years later she is still talking about how painful and horrible this experience was for her.

But hey — he was “great artist”. That excuses all manner of terrible behavior. Apologize away, apologists !

That she is lucky and successful in no way prevents her from having suffered elsewhere in her life.

And, yes, being human, the trials and tribulations of the noteworthy, minor or not, are going to be more interesting to the over-all public than the difficulties and challenges faced by the rest of us in our daily lives.

Boingboing is noteworthy in that it covers a mix of both.

Let me tell you about deep personal humiliation.  if someone vomits at my workplace, I clean it up.  if someone clogs the toilet, I clean it up.  if their dog shits on the patio, I clean it up.  this woman is rich and famous.  I really don’t buy your claim of “deep personal humiliation” for a sexy song she sang when she was young and stupidly claims she didn’t understand.  Yeah, there’s a “deep power imbalance” all right, it’s called class.  something she will never know.  let’s call her lucky.

On a Radio Show on France Inter march 30 1976 :
“- France, what do you think of your early success such as Charlemagne or les sucettes ?
- It’s not for my age anymore, Charlemagne anyway”

 It’s funny until you start thinking about it, then it’s just sad.

Judging from the ticket sales I’d say her career was far from destroyed.