Vanessa Paradis (53) and Samuel Benchetrit (53) are no longer a couple. The singer's management confirmed the end of the relationship on Thursday, August 6, in a brief statement to the AFP news agency, which several media outlets have quoted. The statement does not give any reasons.
"Vanessa Paradis and Samuel Benchetrit announce their separation by mutual agreement, with the respect and affection they continue to have for each other," it states verbatim. Neither of them has personally commented so far. Discretion was their hallmark even during their relationship.
It started with a film role
The two met in 2016. The director contacted the singer to offer her a role in his film Chien, the adaptation of his own novel published two years earlier.
They were seen hand in hand for the first time in August 2017 at the Locarno Film Festival. Nearly a year later, they tied the knot: On June 30, 2018, they married in Saint-Siméon in the Seine-et-Marne department southeast of Paris. The small town was not a randomly chosen location; the singer's father lived there.
Fruitful relationship
The two also remained connected professionally. In 2020, Paradis once again stood in front of the camera for her husband, in Love Songs for Tough Guys alongside François Damiens and Vincent Macaigne. In 2021, Benchetrit raved about his wife in a Gala interview, which Madame Figaro now quotes: "The role will surprise the audience, but not me. When you share life with someone, you perceive their humor." Her sense of comedy impressed him: "Above all, she masters the timing that comedy demands in front of the camera. [...] She is a truly great artist."
Paradis herself described the division of roles in December 2024 to Marie Claire: As soon as they worked together, she was no longer his wife and he was no longer her husband. "He is my director, and I listen to him even more than in everyday life. His word is practically divine in such moments!" For his play Maman, in which he also performed himself in 2023, he wrote a role specifically for her.
Two careers
Paradis began her career in the 1980s as a teenager with the hit Joe le taxi. In cinema, she achieved great success in 2010 with the romantic comedy L'Arnacœur. For the singer and actress, the union with Benchetrit was her first marriage. From 1998 to 2012, she was in a relationship with Hollywood star Johnny Depp. From this relationship came her two children, Lily-Rose Melody Depp (27) and John Christopher Depp III (24).
Benchetrit works as a director, author, and theater maker. Of his roughly dozen books, La Nuit avec ma femme is among the best known; it is a tribute to actress Marie Trintignant, who died in 2003 and to whom he was married. Trintignant died at age 41 from the consequences of severe injuries that her then-partner Bertrand Cantat inflicted on her after an argument. From this marriage came Benchetrit's son Jules (28), and from another relationship his daughter Saul (19).
