Legendary English singer Marianne Faithfull has been hospitalized in London after testing positive for COVID-19. According to a statement obtained by The Guardian, the performer is “stable and responding to treatment,” although it is reported that she has also contracted pneumonia since checking into a London hospital last Monday. Her close friend and performance artist Penny Arcade (born Susana Carmen Ventura) stated that Faithfull had been sheltering in place since contracting a cold, before checking into the hospital.
“Marianne Faithfull’s manager François Ravard has confirmed that Marianne is being treated for COVID-19 in hospital in London,” the singer’s reps said in a statement to Rolling Stone on Saturday. “She is stable and responding to treatment. We all wish her well and a full and speedy recovery.”
Faitfull is best known for being one of the prominent faces during the British invasion of the 1960s, first achieving large success with her breakout hit “As Tears Go By.” While the song was originally written by Faithfull’s former lover Mick Jagger, his Rolling Stones’ bandmate Keith Richards and the band’s then manager Andrew Loog Oldham, Faithfull recorded the song first, and released during the summer of 1964.
She would go on to release a slew of records throughout the 1960s, and was involved with a highly publicized romance with Jagger during the latter part of the decade. During the 1970s the performer suffered from anorexia, a heroin addiction and a stint of homelessness, before revitalizing her career with her hit album Broken English in 1979. Her most recent studio album Negative Capability, came out in 2018.
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