"It's the name the French gave me": the incredible story of the real "Joe le taxi" sung by Vanessa Paradis
Vanessa Paradis LE NOUVEL OBS » ACCORDING TO PIERRE GUILLAUD / AFP
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In 2015, "Le Nouvel Obs" revealed the existence of the "real Joe Le Taxi," whose name was Maria José Leão dos Santos. We met an extraordinary character who passed away in 2019 at the age of 64.
She never takes off her men's clothes. Suit, tie, and waistcoat. "Three rooms - bathroom," she says with her Parisian-girl banter, where the guttural accent of her Portuguese origins appears. In Pigalle, the real ones recognize her by the Borsalino she wears in the evening. Joe is a historic figure in the lesbian scene and in this neighborhood undergoing gentrification, renamed SoPi (South Pigalle), which no longer looks much like…
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