Almost five years after the funeral of Johnny Hallyday, Claude Lelouch, a great friend of the rock star, spoke without language of wood at the microphone of the RTL program, Le bon dimanche, this October 9. And the least we can say is that the director was not kind to some people present during the last farewell to Johnny.
It is December 5, 2017. On this winter evening, our phones and our social networks are going crazy: Johnny Hallyday has just died at his home in Marnes-la-Coquettein the west of Paris, following lung cancer which he failed to overcome. The rock star was 74 years old. Inevitably, the announcement of Johnny’s death created a wave of national emotion and monopolized the media. Four days later, on December 9, 2017, a popular tribute was paid to the rock star in Paris with a musical descent of the Champs-Elysées by the funeral procession.
Remember: nearly a million people gathered in the capital to live the last farewell to their idol, before a ceremony takes place within the church of the Madeleine, in the presence of many political personalities, song, cinema and the media broadcast live by all the channels of television. A moment that will inevitably remain engraved forever for many French people.
Gilles Lelouch: “I wanted to see the fake asses that were there”
Almost five years after this emotional day, Gilles Lelouch insisted on returning to the funeral of his great friend at the microphone of RTL radio, during the program Le Bon Dimanche, broadcast live on October 9, 2022. As a reminder, the director had been filmed crying for his great friend Johnny Hallyday, which had affected a good number of viewers . Asked by Bruno Guillon, the least we can say is that Gilles Lelouch did not mince his words: “I liked this man so much that I wanted to see the few fake asses that were there”he swung, without language of wood.
Before continuing : “I spent my life filming it, I filmed it from the age of 16 to its last day. I wanted to offer a present to Læticia and the children. I was able to film close-up eyes of people who loved him, which television could not do”. For him, several people who were present should not have been. But of course, he didn’t name them.
As a reminder, now 84 years old, director Claude Lelouch has taken the very sad habit of burying several great artists to whom he was very close, such as Jean-Louis Trintignant. Inevitably, these events have shaped his view of his own death, which he now speaks of without filter. “If one day I feel like I’m pissing everyone off, I’ll leave”, he told the newspaper La Nouvelle République. Something we absolutely do not want.