I didn't know this about Coco..

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/5914852/Coco- Chanel-was-a-liar-says-Audrey-Tautou.html


Here is the gist of the interview. It's quite disappointing to learn this.

Tautou, who plays Chanel in a new biopic, included collaboration with the Nazis and rumoured anti-Semitism among the designer's moral failings.

The designer has been accused of collaboration with the Nazis during the Second World War when she lived at the Paris Ritz hotel with a German lover.

Chanel was also notoriously anti-Jewish and disliked homosexuals.

"She was a liar, so it's difficult to know who she was before she became famous and had some success," Tautou told Sky News in an interview.

"She didn't want to talk about her youth, I don't know why, maybe she was ashamed or maybe she didn't want people to feel pity for her because she came from a poor family."

Coco Before Chanel, the new film starring Tatou, tells the story of how Chanel rose from a country orphanage to become an international star by founding her eponymous fashion label.

The film focuses on the early years of Gabrielle Chanel, who was nicknamed Coco during her failed attempt to launch a singing career.

It has already been widely criticised for ignoring Chanel's passionate affair with Hans Gunther von Dincklage during the wartime occupation of Paris.

Chanel's alleged anti-Semitism and homophobia have also been underplayed, critics have said.

Asked if she had reservations about taking on the role of a national icon, Tautou said: 'It's not scary, but it's more of a responsibility.

'I didn't want to betray her. I wanted to have a sense of her character, her personality.

'It was more interesting to get as deep as possible in her sensitivity and creation, rather than just giving the main cliché of her life.'

Tautou shot to fame in Amélie in 2001 and is now widely recognised as one of France's finest actresses, having already made the break into Hollywood, starring in films like the Da Vinci Code in 2006. She has also made her mark in the fashion work, replacing Nicole Kidman as the face of Chanel No 5, Coco Chanel's classic perfume.

Chanel was 87 when she died in 1971.