Trigger warning!

Jeanne Calment is the most famous long-lived person in the world. She is currently the Guinness record holder for the longest human (122 years old).

Her longevity is considered by most to be indisputable. The records “confirming” her longevity are said to be as good as they can get. Even many skeptics of longevity claims concede that Calment’s age is indeed verified.

This view is so widespread that I had never actually heard about anyone disputing it, until I found these books.

These books present a theory that Jeanne actually swapped identities with her daughter. The lady said to be Madame Calment was actually Jeanne’s daughter.

The authors present the standard timeline of her life but really examine the evidence in view of the idea that a swap took place. The evidence, to me, is quite compelling. They also present a very reasonable scenario explaining motivations for performing the swap, and when and how it took place.

They also explain how and why the existing evidence fooled several of the people who “confirmed” her age. These books convinced me that Madame Calment is most likely NOT the longest lived woman.

The first two books are available online for free. I read them online before I bought the set, and honestly the third book wasn’t entirely necessary - the first two lay out the theory, and the third refutes the common rebuttals to their theory. Either way I needed to read the first two twice to really grasp the story - piecing together her life gets a bit complicated. Even if the theory is not true, the story in these books is very interesting and honestly fun to read - somewhat like a detective novel.

If this theory is correct, we all have to stop pointing to Calment as an example of longevity, and we cannot use her habits of evidence of how to live a long time. Longevity research has been plagued by frauds for hundreds of years and we cannot use false centenarians as evidence for anything.

Many people will refuse to read these books and admit that we were all fooled by this little old lady. But they SHOULD read it.