“To be a mother is to form an orange with her child. At some point, you have to separate, cut the orange in half, it’s terrible“: on the subject of motherhood, Julie Depardieu has always been very frank. The 48-year-old actress, daughter of Gérard and Elisabeth Depardieu, even hammered it out for a long time: she did not want children, traumatized by the complicated relationship between a mother and her toddlers who are gradually moving away from her.
In 2010, she was even very frank on the subject. “Children, it’s a duty, like an order in which you enter. I don’t have it, I don’t want it“, she explained, lucid. It must be said that by choosing the path of cinema, she knew perfectly well that she was reproducing a parental pattern which had sometimes made her suffer, with two parent actors.
“I experienced it with my mother. Growing up around her was great, but I don’t feel up to reviving such a relationship with someone who would be my child. This link is heartbreaking“, she continued, while confiding in the same interview that the ties with her mother had now calmed down. According to her, “with my mother, whatever you do you are loved. […] She calms me down, she can hear everything I want to say or shout“.
A very strong maternal model, which made the actress, then 37 years old, fear that she would not be able to be a good mother, especially if she had a daughter. “What I make my mother experience, it would be impossible for a little girl to experience it with me because I wouldn’t be up to it. I would be disappointing“. Very harsh words that did not come true, in the end, since the actress is now the mother of two boys.
Billy and Alfred, 10 and 9 years old, were indeed born in 2011 and 2012, shortly after he met singer Philippe Katerine. A love story that changed everything and allows him today to flourish in a difficult role. “If there was a manual, it would be known! They are still young and we say ‘little children, little problems’“, she explained with humor to the magazine Gala.
Children who are well aware of their luck: “With Philippe, we try to be real parents, with real values, not friends. We don’t want to turn them into children who don’t realize how lucky they are“.