✝️ Karine Bach („Karen Lancaume“), age 32 – January 28 2005, Paris, France 🇫🇷💔
Karine was born in the suburbs of Lyon, France, into a wealthy family. Her father was German and her mother was Moroccan. She spent her childhood in the Lyon countryside and completed her studies in communications.
Karine was gang-raped in 1995: “I went to get smokes at two a.m. after work, and three people trapped me.” In 1996, to escape their crippling debts, at her then husband Franck’s suggestion, the couple began working as a couple in pornographic films. Karen was then, in 1997, forced to have sex with additional partners on camera. She would later go on to say that “a man who truly loves you would never make you do that.” The couple divorced shortly after.
Karine in 1999 came to feel distaste for her work, saying in an interview: „I was covered in spunk, wet, freezing to death and no one even offered me a towel. When the scene ends, you are worthless.“ In 1999, she exhibited at the Cannes Film Festival, and met Virginie Despentes, who was seeking actresses to perform explicit unsimulated sex in her first film Baise-moi.
Karine abandoned the pornographic industry in 2002, after six years in the business. She was sick of porn and the industry. In an interview, she railed against gender inequality: “Why are women grabbed by the ass and not men? All we ask for is understanding, equality. In porn, guys enjoy the mouth of girls, the woman takes it on the face.”
Karine had hoped to publish an autobiography about her experiences in the adult film industry, but she never got the chance.
Karine’s ambitions extended far beyond her pornography career: she wished to feature in mainstream films, to fall in love, to have children, to publish a book about her life, and to enjoy a life of financial security and pleasure.
Karine committed suicide by taking an overdose of temazepam and alcohol, in her ex-boyfriend’s apartment in Paris. The note she left behind read simply, „Too painful.“