Marie Caro Dead: Mother Of Deceased Anorexic Model Isabelle Caro Commits Suicide

Marie Caro, mother of anorexic model Isabelle Caro who passed away last year, has committed suicide, the Daily Mail writes.

Isabelle was best-known for her image used in a shock Italian ad campaign (which you can see here) conceived by photographer Olivier Toscani in 2007 under the headline "No Anorexia." She more recently appeared on Jessica Simpson's "The Price of Beauty." She had suffered from the eating disorder since she was 13 and usually blamed her difficult childhood.

Christian Caro, Isabelle's stepfather spoke with Swiss newspaper 20 minutes about both deaths. He blames the Bichat Hospital in Paris for Isabelle's passing:

She was hospitalized on November 16, 2010 for a stomach ache. My wife requested that she be taken to Bichat and she told doctors what was happening and told them about her illness. The doctors said they'd run some tests but they'd put Isabelle to sleep so she'd be less disturbed. They should have never done that. Isabelle died the 17th at the beginning of the afternoon. She died because they disconnected her from the machines. Two doctors took my wife and I separately and said, "You know, in any case, your daughter didn't want to live." They shortened it all. They wanted to do it quickly because there were a lot of people waiting.

Christian added that he filed a complaint with the prosecutor in Paris for manslaughter. Of his wife, Marie, he said:

My wife...she felt guilty for sending my daughter to the hospital in Bichat. [....] She had that weight on her head, a huge guilt. And this was in addition to the press, above all an interview with Toscani that she succeeded in viewing, although I tried to keep it from her. And she couldn't tolerate it. She already couldn't bear the death of her daughter.

20 Minutes reports that Christian is now working on a music project, the profits of which will go to the association Isabelle created to help people suffering from anorexia. A single will be out by the end of the month.

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Need help? In the U.S., call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255

Comments

[kat momma]

04:02 AM on 03/08/2011

Suicide is always painful for the bereaved. In this case, it is especially so. Isabelle Caro's mother, Marie Caro, must have suffered tremendously after her daughter's sudden death. I can only hope that she has found peace now. Such a tragedy.

[ajlamb]

03:42 PM on 01/24/2011

Very sad. I hope some good can come from this (duel) tragedy.

[Ugonna]

11:44 AM on 01/24/2011

that's so sad. So not what her daughter would have wanted, and she probably would have been a little disappointed. Her daughter put up a good long fight before she succumbed to anorexia, and I think it would have been great to see her mother continue that battle for her and campaign around the world against the illness that took her daughter's life. Giving up is never the way. RIP.

[European1919]

07:08 AM on 01/24/2011

Gimme Christina Hendricks any time.

[JacquelineMichaelWhatley]

12:38 AM on 01/24/2011

How sad.

[Daisytoo]

03:26 PM on 01/23/2011

Anyone here allowed to comment on how the health care system in France was complicit in both the daughter and the mother's deaths? It's right there in the article, but apparently, we are not allowed to mention it.

[reluctantWASP]

02:57 AM on 01/23/2011

Its such a fine line between being amazingly thin and dying. Unfortunately, this lady's daughter took it a little to far.

[Angie Daniels]

04:55 AM on 01/22/2011

Fashion is all about how to flaunt wealth. In the earlier centuries most people worked in the field, so being fat and pale (or in African cultures, fat and lighter) were the fad because it meant you didn't have to work. Now people who work are stuck in cubicles and they gain weight. Long term it's no mystery. It's about flaunting leisure.

Only when we can get back to more of a farming society will anorexia in models no longer be a problem. And that's not likely to happen anytime soon.

[Angie Daniels]

02:45 AM on 01/23/2011

Nah. It's about rich women. And being rich means you can be thin. What's that phrase, you can never be too thin or too rich? They may know better, but the super rich still value thinness. They can use a surrogate if they want children, get new boobs if they want, so the idea of naturally womanly curves isn't an ideal that they have to strive towards. Also, (at least in the US) there's an obsession with youth. Our teenage years we were probably thinner than we are now (no matter what our earning ability) and no one wants to grow old gracefully.

Now Hollywood doesn't help, but whether it's a leader or a follower is unsure. Certainly the appearance of minority females, (Black, Hispanic and anyone not Asian or White) helps to foster acceptance that being larger/curvy is sexy. But where are the examples for young White girls? Their stars are all really thin. It's a subtle difference, but the existence of anorexia in minority societies is lower, probably because we have larger people to look at and admire. (whether it's our moms, Oprah, Kim Kardashian, Sophia from Modern Family, any Bollywood star etc). Also minority men find larger women attractive, helping women accept a little cushion.

But haute couture is not for those people in general. High fashion is for people like Anna Wintour. Maybe the next generation of designers/magazine editors can make the changes.

[avam2009]

08:32 AM on 01/23/2011

Yes, I agree that fashion is partly about how to flaunt wealth, but I would disagree that that is the main aim for many fashionistas or people whole like fashion. That's akin to saying people only buy art as investments and never bcause they enjoy art or have an emtional connection with it. Further, in relation to your farmer point ..so how does that explain the landed gentry (which often include rich, very rich, farmers) in the UK? They are just as likely to be fat (or thin) as any other rich landowner.

[WYHKTai-Tai]

07:01 AM on 01/24/2011

I think she's talking about farmers in the preindustrial days, or maybe just the pre-office-worker time. The landed gentry didn't have to 'work', they stood around when they felt like it and gave orders to their workers, but they would not be out their toiling all day every day; & they covered up with wide-brimmed hats and the ladies with bonnets, so they wouldn't get the slightest tan. Even for today's UK landowners, I think: If you're not well-off enough to have other people work your land? you're just a farmer, not landed gentry. Not someone who will be admired and copied in the pages of Tattler!
I think Angie's got a point on this one.

I like fashion too, but MOST fashions now, and have been for awhile, designed specifically to look good on a tall willowy, (thin) frame. Thankgawd not ALL, but most. I don't know which came first, the idealized beauty of tall thin girls or the fashions for them (?)

[Jazmo]

11:21 AM on 01/21/2011

Incredibly sad story that in all likelihood will not change a thing.
The models will be too skinny and women aspiring to be a model will conform.
Women will be left with impossible standards to maintain and some will become sick with eating disorders as well.
I can't fathom how her mother must have felt. May they find peace.

[Eileenla]

09:41 AM on 01/21/2011

The bigger question is why we've set such an impossible standard of beauty as the one models try and convey, ensuring the vast majority of women will invest billions trying - and repeatedly failing- to achieve it. True beauty lies within; when our juvenile society finally matures enough to grasp that, women (and men) will be freed from the tyranny of corporate profiteering at our physical and emotional expense.

[Andy Clark]

02:19 AM on 01/22/2011

you answered your own question.

there are billions of dollars in the industry of trying to make people attain insane standards.

[GirlInNYC]

07:47 AM on 01/21/2011

Who took the photo of her that way? That's outrageous.

[chiodo08]

10:14 AM on 01/21/2011

it was part of a campaign exposing the myth of their beauty....showing the price for it

[andthatsnotall]

10:55 PM on 01/20/2011

I have a 16 year old grand daughter. I am (and she is very) lucky that she does not have this terrible eating disorder. My mother would make comments about how fat she was getting "like a little butterball" when she was about 8 yrs old. I took my mom aside and told her she was not to make any kind of fat statements to my grand daughter. I told her that she was a perfect weight for her height and age and any "baby fat" she had would be gone once puberty set in. My mom, naturally, got offended, but I kept an eye out and an ear ready for any sort of negative comments. Once they stopped for good I was happy.

My grand daughter has a wonderful self image, has a perfectly healthy, slim body and no eating disorder. She is one of the lucky ones.

Words can wound. We all deserve respect. We all need to be more careful with the words we use with each other. (And, I admit that I fail at that a lot but, I'm still trying. That's gotta be worth something)

[Artemis34]

10:44 PM on 01/20/2011

Rest in peace.  Must be terrible to see you child slip away from you this way.

[Z2a]

10:27 PM on 01/20/2011

So sad. A few weeks ago a similar thing happened to someone I knew. My friend's mother passed away a year ago, and then a few weeks ago before Christmas my friend took her life because she could deal with another holiday without her mother.

Suicide is the ultimate pain for the surviving loved ones.

[roblabrousse]

09:35 PM on 01/20/2011

Pleas let this poor woman rest in peace.