[5]: 4–21  Fernand was heir to a drapery business located in a classic Provençal-style building in the centre of Arles, and the couple moved into a spacious apartment above the family store.

[2] Jeanne employed servants and never had to work; she led a leisurely lifestyle within the upper society of Arles, pursuing hobbies such as fencing, cycling, tennis, swimming, rollerskating, playing the piano, and making music with friends.

Yvonne married army officer Joseph Billot on 3 February 1926, and their only son, Frédéric, was born on 23 December of the same year.

[1] Yvonne died of pleurisy on 19 January 1934, her 36th birthday,[6][7] after which Calment raised Frédéric, although he lived with his father in the neighbouring apartment.

[1][2] In 1965, aged 90 and with no heirs left, Calment signed a life estate contract on her apartment with civil law notary André-François Raffray, selling the property in exchange for a right of occupancy and a monthly revenue of 2,500 francs (€380) until her death.

Raffray died on 25 December 1995, by which time Calment had received more than double the apartment's value from him, and his family had to continue making payments.

[10] In 1996, Time's Mistress, a four-track CD of Jeanne speaking over musical backing tracks in various styles, including rap, was released.

[12] Her profile increased during the centennial of Vincent van Gogh's move to Arles, which occurred from February 1888 to April 1889 when she was 13 and 14 years old.

Calment claimed to reporters that she had met van Gogh at that time, introduced to him by her future husband in her uncle's fabric shop.

[16] However, the Gerontology Research Group has since then validated the age of Easter Wiggins (1 June 1874 – 7 July 1990), meaning that in reality Calment became the world's oldest living person in 1990.

As a result of Izumi's validation being withdrawn, Calment had already been the oldest person ever since surpassing the age of Easter Wiggins on 30 March 1991.

[2] After Calment's death, at 122 years and 164 days, then almost 117-year-old Canadian woman Marie-Louise Meilleur became the oldest validated living person.

She was asked questions about documented details concerning relatives, and about people and places from her early life, for instance teachers or maids.

The family's membership in the local Catholic bourgeoisie helped researchers find corroborating chains of documentary evidence.

[8] Calment reportedly ascribed her longevity and relatively youthful appearance for her age to a diet rich in olive oil.

[14] Demographers have highlighted that Calment's age is an outlier, her lifespan being several years longer than the next oldest people ever documented, where the differences are usually by months or weeks.

[29][30][31] This hypothesis is considered weak by mainstream longevity experts, such as French gerontologist Jean-Marie Robine,[32] who pointed out that during his research, Calment had correctly answered questions about things that her daughter could not have known first-hand.

[36] In September 2019, several French scientists released a paper in The Journals of Gerontology pointing out inaccuracies in the Zak et al.

In February 2020, Zak and Philip Gibbs published an assessment applying Bayes' theorem to the question of her authenticity, noting that, while being subjective, it gave "a 99.99% chance of an identity switch in the case of Mme Calment".

Young is said to have found that "a very solid case that Jeanne was 122 years has already been made" but that biosampling was still needed to test "for biomarkers of extraordinary longevity".

Robin-Champigneul stated that "the hypothesis of an identity swap with her daughter appears not even realistic given the context and the facts, and not supported by evidence".

[38][39][40][41][42] Since Jeanne Calment had 16 distinct great-great-grandparents while her daughter Yvonne had only 12, geneticists have noted that the question of identity could easily be settled by a test for autozygous DNA if a blood or tissue sample were to be made available.

[5]: 4–21 After her admission to the Maison du Lac nursing home in January 1985, aged almost 110, Calment initially followed a highly ritualised daily routine.

[45] She washed herself unassisted with a flannel cloth rather than taking a shower, applying first soap, then olive oil and powder to her face.

In the afternoon, she would take a nap for two hours in her armchair, and then visit her neighbours in the care home, telling them about the latest news she had heard on the radio.

At nightfall, she would dine quickly, return to her room, listen to music (her poor eyesight preventing her from enjoying her crosswords pastime), smoke a last cigarette and go to bed at 10:00 p.m.[5]: 4–21 [4]: 85–92  On Sundays, she went to Mass, and on Fridays she went to Vespers and regularly prayed to and sought help from God and wondered about the afterlife.

[citation needed] Analyses of her blood samples were in normal ranges between ages 111–114, with no signs of dehydration, anemia, chronic infection or renal impairment.

According to their year-long analysis, Calment's vision was severely impaired by bilateral cataracts, yet she refused to undergo a routine operation to restore her eyesight; she had a moderately weak heart, a chronic cough, and bouts of rheumatism.

The tests showed that her verbal memory and language fluency were comparable to those of persons with the same level of education in their eighties and nineties.