Marianne Faithfull on the death of L’Wren Scott: 'It could have been me'

The singer and actress says “being with Mick was very difficult”

Marianne Faithfull on Who Do You Think You Are? (Wall to Wall Media)

Marianne Faithfull feels “tremendous compassion” for L’Wren Scott, who took her own life on 17 March earlier this year.

“I look at poor L’Wren and I feel tremendous compassion because she obviously just couldn’t cut it,” said Faithfull, who also famously dated Mick Jagger. “Being with Mick was very difficult — and it could have been me. I did take a huge overdose in Sydney.”

The designer and long-term partner of Jagger was founded hanged by her assistant in her Manhattan apartment, aged 49.

Faithfull overdosed on barbiturates while travelling to Australia with Jagger and fell into a coma upon their arrival at the hotel.

“I was unconscious for six days and nearly died, so that could have easily been me,” she said. “Mind you, I was 22.”

“You have to be very strong, and poor L’Wren,” Faithfull continued. “I think she also came from that very weird background, that Mormon thing.”

She described the “enormous pressures” of being Jagger’s girlfriend, which “obviously for a lot of people it’s worth it”.

“Anyway, it must be different for everybody,” she told the Sunday Times. “Most of those girls who are with him, since me actually, really like the fame and the money, all that shit. I never cared.”

She also discussed the importance of free will and autonomy, talking in relation to her ex-boyfriend and current manager Francois Ravard.

“I believe people are free to do what they want. Not free to f*** children, no,” she said. “But anything else apart from that and murder they should be allowed to do. But that’s one of my faults. It’s a big fault.”

Faithfull recently claimed another of her former boyfriends, drug dealer Jean de Breteuil, killed Jim Morrison of The Doors. The musician was 27 when he was found dead in his French apartment on 3 July 1971.

“I could intuitively feel trouble,” said Faithfull. “I thought, ‘I'll take a few Tuinal [barbiturates] and I won't be there.’ And he went to see Jim Morrison and killed him. I mean I'm sure it was an accident.”