Last night, BBC Two’s newest documentary focused in on one of the most recognisable faces in fashion history: Karl Lagerfeld. With the help of multiple insiders, many of whom were speaking publicly for the first time, the documentary looks beyond the starch collars and sunglasses to shine a light on Karl’s inner circle, the whereabouts of his fortune, his unconventional love life and, ultimately, his final moments before succumbing to pancreatic cancer aged 85.
Of course, not all of us have an hour and a half to devote to a documentary (Karl certainly wouldn’t waste this kind of frivolous time) so here’s a quick rundown of all the biggest revelations from Lagerfeld’s latest oh-so-salacious doc.
1. Only his lawyer knows who his fortune is going to
When documentary makers spoke to Céline Degoulet, Lagerfeld’s lawyer, former agent and trusted advisor, she was duty bound to be pretty schtum. What she did reveal, though, is that she knows the highly coveted ‘list’ — the names of all the people (and animals, but we’ll get to that) Karl has bequeathed parts of his estimated $200 million fortune to. The fortune is currently tied up in processing, but from other interviews in the documentary we know that at least some of Karl’s will is dedicated to his bodyguard, Sébastien Jondeau, as well as two of his male muses, Brad Kroenig and Baptiste Giabiconi. That makes three, but at one point, his friend Carine Roitfeld says there is a rumoured seven people on the list in total.
2. Choupette is getting a sizeable chunk
Lagerfeld has owned his beloved and iconic blue-cream tortie Birman cat, Choupette, ever since muse Baptiste asked him to catsit her when he went on holiday (imagine casually asking Karl Lagerfeld to catsit your cat, and imagine him saying ‘yes’) and he became obsessed with her. "When [Baptiste] came back I thought, ‘I'm sorry Choupette is mine’," Lagerfeld has previously said of his and Choupette’s love story.
Karl made Choupette a star of her own — after all, he was not unfamiliar with boosting the images of those he found particularly entrancing — with an estaimated €3 million from her own modelling career. She also has her own agent, as well as a full-time carer, Françoise Caçote, who looks after Choupette now that Karl has died. But it looks like Choupette and Françoise are set to get a little extra net worth on top of Choupette’s existing millions, with a portion of money from Karl’s will designated to take care of them both.
3. Choupette, the diva
Turns out Karl’s love for Choupette was not universal. She may be a certified cat model with 149,000 Instagram followers, but apparently she’s not too nice in real life. “She’s not a nice girl,” ex-Vogue Paris editor and friend of Karl’s, Carine Roitfeld, tells documentary makers. “Very jealous girl, Choupette, she’s a mean cat [...] she can bite, she can scratch, she’s not a nice girl.” When her agent, Lucas Berullier, is asked if Choupette is a diva, he responds, “Oh she’s a diva, she’s an enormous diva, I’ve never seen anything like [her], and if she doesn’t want [to do something], well it’s her decision, we can’t force her [...] it’s a no, we can’t do it.”
Another of Karl’s friends tells the camera, “She was not well educated, Choupette, she was not my friend,” detailing how he offered her fresh salmon on a private jet and she turned her nose up at it.
4. Karl was sexless, according to an old friend
A lot of the documentary focuses around Karl’s close relationships with his much younger muses, Brad Kroenig and Baptiste Giabiconi, who are over 40 years his junior. Contrary to assumptions, Karl’s relationships with both men was apparently devoid of sex, and Baptiste even describes his and Karl’s bond as more of a “father-son” relationship, where the pair actually discussed the possibility of adoption. American model Brad, who has been photographed nude by Lagerfeld hundreds of times, said being photographed by Karl felt “natural.”
Even Karl’s great love affair — his relationship with the wild, seductive Jacques de Bascher, who was also dating Yves Saint Laurent, Karl’s nemesis — was an abstinent one, according to old friend. “Karl had a problem with sex,” former friend Patrick Hourcade says in the documentary, “he can’t have sex, and Jacques was crazy about sex - that’s why he let Jacques going everywhere [sleep around].”
5. He loved party people, though he never partied
According to friends, Karl was “the good boy at school”, he didn’t party or go out at night that much, but he liked people who were the opposite (“The more perverse,” as Karl’s former colleague puts it), like his big love, Jacques de Bascher. Appropriately, the documentary also includes a slew of shots of Karl arm in arm with his other muse, Cara Delevingne, once a notorious party girl.
6. He put on weight after a year of heartbreak
Jacques de Bascher and Karl Lagerfeld’s mother, Elisabeth Bahlmann, passed away within two years of each other, and Karl was turned inside out by the loss. Friends say this fuelled his rather sudden weight gain in the early 90s (“He was crazy for currywurst,” a friend says) until he eventually saw himself referred to as a “grandad” in a newspaper he was reading and he was livid. He got so angry he lost 60lbs (over four stone) in eight months around 2001 and started taking every media opportunity offered to him so he could show off his new slim body. His weight loss gained such traction that Lagerfeld eventually wrote a book on his diet technique, called The Karl Lagerfeld Diet, which he’s also referred to as a “sort of punishment.”
7. Karl wore his starch collars even on holiday
Karl stayed dressed in those tall, starch white collars, which he claimed were good for his posture, even during his frequent holidays in sunny St Tropez. American model and muse Brad Kroenig told documentary makers he never “saw him in anything different.”
8. He could spent $30,000 on books in one day
As part of the documentary, interviewers visit Karl’s local bookstore in Paris, which he frequented two or three times a week. This is already regular by bookworm standards, but the real jawdropper is how much Karl would spend on his visits — up to $30,000 per trip. “He was like a child in front of a Christmas tree [when he was in the store],” says the store manager, Danielle Cillien-Sabatier. “Karl told me once that he had 300,000 books,” she shared.
9. Only his bodyguard knew how ill he really was
When Karl was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, only his trusted bodyguard Sébastien Jondeau knew the full extent of his illness, and he was by Karl’s side when he died. It all started when Karl realised because he couldn’t pee, so he called Sébastien and was taken to the hospital. “He was comletely blocked, the urinary system,” Karl’s doctor told the camera, “He had [the] very advanced disease of prostate cancer.”
Karl elected not have the surgery which could have eased his illness and instead to just have medicine, which were issued under Sébastien’s name so that the media didn’t catch a whiff of what was going on. Karl kept working until the very end — on the day he died, he asked if he’d be well enough to go to the Fendi show that was due to happen the later that week, but 12 hours later, he was gone.
10. His accountant ‘disappeared’ as soon as he died
In a totally normal and unsuspicious move, Karl Lagerfeld’s longtime accountant of 30 years, Lucien Frydlender, disappeared as soon as Karl died and moved to Switzerland. With Karl’s inheritance situation already a complicated one thanks to his tax affairs being split across France and Monaco (he had a house there), it became particularly sticky in Frydlender’s absense, and the beneficiaries of Karl’s will are still waiting on their payouts. It’s all very hush hush, and Frydlender’s representatives told documentary makers he “can’t answer any questions due to ill health.”
