I sleep in Chanel Number Five.

Martin asks Monroe who originated the famous remarks attributed to her. She claims them as her own and explains that people repeatedly asked whether she slept in pajamas, a nightgown, or nothing. She says that answering with the name of her perfume was both truthful and a way out of the intrusive question.

The perfume is the only thing she names as nightwear, turning an intimate question into a joke.

This is Monroe’s interview remark, not dialogue spoken by a film character. The checked article establishes that she publicly claimed the joke in 1956; it does not establish its first appearance or the wording of every later perfume advertisement.

Truth

• I had the radio on.
• Either that wallpaper goes, or I do. (not found) Oscar Wilde
• The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated. (paraphrase) Mark Twain
• Yeah, but you can’t prove it. Mae West
• I can resist everything except temptation. Oscar Wilde

Marilyn Monroe, Pete Martin, The New Marilyn Monroe, part two: Here She Talks About Herself, The Saturday Evening Post, 12 May 1956; republished by the magazine in April 2016. Checked at Quotogeny, https://quotogeny.com/q/i-sleep-in-chanel-number-five/ (26 October 2026).

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