Nico (born Christa Päffgen; 16 October 1938 – 18 July 1988) was a German singer-songwriter, lyricist, composer, musician, fashion model, and actress who became famous as a Warhol Superstar in the 1960s. She is known for her vocals on The Velvet Underground's debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967), and her work as a solo artist. She also had roles in several films, including Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita (1960) and Andy Warhol's Chelsea Girls (1966).

Biography

Nico had an affair with French actor Alain Delon and from this relationship conceived a son, Christian Aaron Boulogne, whom Nico called "Ari." Delon denied paternity and Nico had difficulty raising Ari, so the boy was raised by Delon's parents. Ari became a photographer and actor, and had a son in 1999.

Nico saw herself as part of a tradition of bohemian artists, which she traced back to the Romanticism of the early 19th century. She led a nomadic life, living in different countries. Apart from Germany, where she grew up, and Spain, where she died, Nico lived in Italy and France in the 1950s, spent most of the 1960s in the US, and lived in London in the early 1960s and again in the 1980s, when she lived intermittently between London and Manchester.

During the final years of her life, she was based around the Prestwich and Salford area of Greater Manchester. Although she was still struggling with addiction, she became interested in music again. For a few months in the 1980s, she shared an apartment in Brixton, London, with punk poet John Cooper Clarke.

Nico was deaf in one ear.


Addiction
Nico was a heroin addict for over 15 years. In the book Songs They Never Play on the Radio, James Young, a member of her band in the 1980s, recalls many examples of her troubling behaviour due to her "overwhelming" addiction – and also that Nico claimed to have never taken the drug while with the Velvets/Factory scene but only began using during her relationship with Philippe Garrel in the 1970s. She also introduced her son to heroin consumption. Shortly before her death, Nico stopped using heroin and began methadone replacement therapy and began a regimen of bicycle exercise and healthy eating.


Racism
Nico was described by some friends and colleagues as racist. Her friend Danny Fields, the American journalist who helped her sign to Elektra Records, described her as "Nazi-esque", saying: "Every once in a while there'd be something about Jews and I'd be, 'But Nico, I'm Jewish,' and she was like 'Yes, yes, I don't mean you.' She had a definite Nordic Aryan streak, [the belief] that she was physically, spiritually and creatively superior," a view she appears to have continued to maintain throughout her years as a heroin addict and long after her appearances on fashion magazine covers had become a thing of the distant past. According to Fields, Nico once attacked a mixed-race woman in a restaurant with a smashed wineglass, saying "I hate black people". During a performance in Berlin, the audience rioted after Nico performed the German national anthem "Deutschlandlied", including a verse omitted since 1945 for its nationalist associations.