So many biographies of Coco Chanel come out each decade that each has to find it's own thing to sensationalize about her life. The writer of Coco Chanel: an Intimate Life took the bisexual drug user angle. And in Sleeping with the Enemy: Coco Chanel's Secret War, Hal Vaughan takes the Jew hater angle. Calling Coco "fiercely" anti-Semitic, Vaughan says she even worked for the Nazis in World War II. The book also says she had a love affair with Baron Hans Gunther von Dincklage, who "reported directly to Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, right hand of Hitler."

British Vogue received a word from Chanel's PR about the book:

"Such insinuations cannot go unchallenged," a Chanel spokesperson took the unusual step of telling us. "She would hardly have formed a relationship with the family of the owners or counted Jewish people among her close friends and professional partners such as the Rothschild family, the photographer Irving Penn or the well-known French writer Joseph Kessel had these really been her views. It is unlikely.

"We also know that she and Churchill were close friends for a long time. She apparently approached him about acting as an intermediary between the Allies and the Germans for a peace settlement known as Operation Modelhut. No one knows for sure exactly what happened or what her role was to be. There are several different versions and it will no doubt always remain a mystery.

"More than 57 books have been written about Gabrielle Chanel. To decide for yourself, we would encourage you to consult some of the more serious ones."

Oh, but the fan fiction or non-fiction or whatever it is, is so much more fun!

Not Coco [Vogue UK]