Their love story looks like fairy tales. And yet, when Chantal Goya evokes her husband Jean-Jacques Debout, she never hesitates to give him a few spades. In a relationship with the songwriter and performer since 1964, she has loved him, in her own way, for 57 years. Him the ying, she the yang, their balance is sometimes precarious … but it is clear that the recipe is a success! “You know me, I’m not very complicated, she explains to Purepeople. We don’t have the same tastes at all, so we complement each other. We have nothing in common. I don’t like what he eats. At night, this is where he works, where he is inspired, while I love to sleep. But it had to be done like that. Our life has been, somewhere, guided.”
Their plates may be filled in a different way, but Chantal Goya and Jean-Jacques Debout are as accomplices in 2021 as on the first day. Parents of two children, Clarisse and Jean-Paul, they have just collaborated on a sublime Christmas album, released on November 19, 2021, in which the singer takes up some great classics, Long live the wind, my beautiful tree, as well as some unpublished ones including You my blanket. In spite of everything, between these two things sound obvious. And that, the musician had sensed from their first meeting.
We will get married, we will have two children and you will be famous before 30 years old
Chantal Goya and Jean-Jacques Debout met for the first time in 1964 at the wedding of a mutual friend. The young woman had seen this stranger land at the time, in a sailor sweater, surrounded by Eddie Barclay and Sacha Distel. “He spotted me in the distance. He crossed the living room. He came and sat down next to me and said, ‘I feel like I always know you. We will get married, we will have two children and you will be famous before 30 years old. And you will sing at the opera“She remembers. The future proved her right. Marriage and children soon followed this interview. As for the opera, Chantal Goya sang her entire show there, for Jacques Chirac’s Christmas when he was at Matignon There is no coincidence …
Interview by Yohann Turi. Any reproduction prohibited without the mention of Purepeople.com.