Born on 17 June: Does Lio still love the Banana Split?

Born in Portugal in 1962, the singer who holds both Belgian and Portuguese nationalities celebrates her 63rd birthday.

And take a deep breath to pronounce her full civil name: Wanda Maria Ribeiro Furtado Tavares de Vasconcelos. Her three-letter stage name Lio (a reference to Barbarella, the heroine from the comic strip by Jean-Claude Forrest) is a lot easier to remember…

Just like France Gall when she sang "Les sucettes" written by Serge Gainsbourg in 1966, unaware of the implicit double meaning, Lio was also not yet 18 when she fell for "Banana Split", which was written for her by Jacques Duvall (under the pseudonym Hagen Dierks) in 1979, with music by Jay Alanski. She too probably didn’t understand the naughtier undertones in the lyrics.

Her singing career is certainly scattered with wonderful songs, most of them written by Jacques Duvall, such as "Amoureux solitaires" and "Sage comme une image" (1980), "Mona Lisa" in reference to the Red Brigades (1982), "Les brunes ne comptent pas pour des prunes" (1986), "Seules les filles pleurent" (1988) and, with little popular success, a "Je suis comme je suis" (2000) that feels like a confession.

But Lio doesn't just sing; she also leads a surprisingly eclectic film (and television) career. Beneath her apparent lightness, Lio is a feminist. It's no coincidence that she often works under female directors like Diane Kurys ("Après l'amour"), Catherine Breillat ("Sale comme un ange"), Manon Vernoux ("Personne ne m’aime"), Aline Isserman ("Dieu, l’amant de ma mère et le fils du charcutier"), Yolande Moreau ("Henri") and even Chantal Ackerman ("Les années 80").

With her strong-willed personality, Lio notably supports the feminist movement Femen and even performed topless for their tenth anniversary in 2018. On Arte in 2020, in the wake of Me Too, she stated bluntly, "I’ve recovered from Serge Gainsbourg. He was a harasser. He was not at all a cool character with women". She was the first to dare to challenge the myth of French chanson, and, it must be said, put forward a rather relevant argument. Lio also has a generous heart. When her friend Plastic Bertrand asked her to join a line-up of 80s stars from Alec Mansion to Zouk Machine on stage at the Cirque Royal in Brussels in April 2022 to raise funds for Ukraine, she accepted without a moment’s hesitation. That’s also Lio!

(MH with Stéphane Soupart - Photo: © Etienne Tordoir)

Photo: Lio during the recording of the show "Super Cool" in Brussels (Belgium) on 22 December 1983