Bertrand Cantat

Pau, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France

Bertrand Cantat (born 5 March 1964) is a French songwriter, singer, and musician known for being the former frontman of the rock band Noir Désir. In 2003, he was proven guilty without a doubt and convicted of the murder ("murder with indirect intent" – dolus eventualis) of French actress Marie Trintignant, which occurred in a hotel room in Vilnius. Cantat returned to Noir Désir after his release from prison in 2007, playing with the group until it disbanded in 2010. He subsequently formed a musical duo with Pascal Humbert, calling themselves Détroit.

Cantat was born in Pau, Pyrénées-Atlantiques. The son of a navy officer, he spent his childhood in Le Havre. His family moved when he was an adolescent to Bordeaux. At the lycée Saint-Genès, he met Denis Barthe, Serge Teyssot-Gay, and Frédéric Vidalenc, who soon became members of his band.

At the height of Noir Désir's success in the 1990s, Cantat was a prominent figure in French music. Noir Désir is regarded "to have made the history of the French rock scene for three decades". He was known for the quality of his lyrics, charisma, and live performances, often compared to Jim Morrison of the Doors.

In 1997, Cantat married Krisztina Rády, an art director of Hungarian descent, with whom he had two children; Milo, born in 1998, and Alice, born in 2003.

In 2003, Cantat began an affair with French actress Marie Trintignant. On 26 July of that year, Cantat and Trintignant got in a fight in a hotel room in Vilnius, Lithuania, following a dispute over a text message. Seven hours later, Trintignant's brother called emergency services to the couple's Vilnius hotel room, as Trintignant had slipped into a deep coma. She died of swelling to the brain several days later in hospital. The post-mortem examination suggested that Cantat had inflicted 19 blows to Trintignant's head, causing irreversible brain damage. In court, Cantat claimed he "slapped" Trintignant four times before putting her to bed. He claimed he had flown into a jealous rage after she received a text message from her husband, Samuel Benchetrit. Trintignant was 41 at the time of her death, and left four young sons. French medical experts at the hearing confirmed Cantat's claim regarding the slapping, as well as his claim that he could not tell that Trintignant was dying. His house was burned down in Moustey. His spouse and his two children initially were supposed to be in the house at that time, but were in Bordeaux, instead....

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