World’s oldest woman smoked and drank wine regularly and still lived to 122

Jeanne Calment: The Woman Who Lived to 122 — Cigarettes, Port Wine, Chocolate, and a Century of History

Jeanne Louise Calment is officially the oldest person ever verified in human history. Born in Arles, France on 21 February 1875, she died on 4 August 1997 — living 122 years and 164 days. Her lifespan is more than a century longer than what the average person born in the same era could expect.

Her long life has captivated scientists, journalists, and the public alike. What makes her story especially intriguing is not just how long she lived, but how she lived — embracing habits that seem at odds with typical health advice. Calment drank wine regularly, smoked for much of her adult life, loved chocolate, and remained mentally sharp until her final years. In this article we explore her life in depth, her lifestyle habits, how they defy stereotypes about longevity, and what experts think about her case.

Early Life: A 19th‑Century Childhood

Jeanne Calment was born in a well‑off family in the southern French city of Arles in 1875, fourteen years before the Eiffel Tower was completed. Growing up, she was part of a bourgeois household — meaning she experienced a comfortable upbringing that would shape much of her life trajectory.

Her parents owned a drapery shop, and she spent her youth there. It was in that shop, according to her own later accounts, that she met the artist Vincent van Gogh when she was just 13 — a remarkable connection to the 19th century that few people in her later years could claim.

Calment received an education that was uncommon for many women at the time, attending school until age 16 and later taking private classes in cuisine, art, and dance — experiences likely facilitated by her family’s means.

Marriage, Leisure, and Independence

In 1896, at age 21, Jeanne Calment married Fernand Nicolas Calment, a distant cousin who was considerably wealthier. This marriage cemented her comfortable lifestyle: she never had to work for a living and lived in a spacious apartment above her husband’s family’s drapery store. She had servants who cooked and cleaned, allowing her to focus on her own interests.

This life of leisure was unusual for the time and certainly contrastive with the lives of many people born in the late 19th century, especially women. It meant that stress, physical labor, and the hardships of manual work — all factors associated with poorer health outcomes — played a limited role in her life.

Aging Through a Century of Change

Calment’s life stretched across three centuries of drastic social, technological, and cultural transformations:

She was born before electric light was widespread.

She saw the erection of the Eiffel Tower.

She lived through two world wars.

She witnessed the arrival of telephones, automobiles, airplanes, television, space travel, and eventually the early internet age.

Few people in history have lived through such sweeping change; even fewer have maintained independence and clarity into life’s last decades.

Unusual Lifestyle Habits

What often makes Jeanne Calment’s story so compelling — and so widely shared in popular media — are the habits that seem to contradict modern health advice:

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