Renaud, 70, says he is “anguished” by death



VS’is an old torment, which he remembers every day: the fear of death, even more present as the singer prepares to turn 70 on May 11. “It’s always an anxiety, recently confided Renaud on RTL. Every day I wake up and say to myself: it’s the last day of the rest of my life. All this coupled with unfailing paranoia…” He recognizes in passing that being 70 years old, “it really hurts! “. “When I was little, I wanted to die around 30, like Christ, like Arthur Rimbaud. Now I hope to live to be 110…”

This fear has been both a driving force and a brake in his career. Renaud has always been haunted by the passage of time, the regrets of years gone by, cultivating a nostalgia that has inspired him with magnificent songs, such as “Mistral Gagnant” or “Morgane de toi”. But it also plunged him into the throes of depression, with its procession of excess, including alcohol, tipping Renaud towards Mister Renard. “Paranoia and the cockroach only inspire dark thoughts in him,” he wrote in his famous tube.

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“He is haunted by this fear of death, had thus testified his ex-wife Dominique Séchan in the biography Renaud. Lost paradise, by Erwan L’Éléouet. It’s a strange mechanism: both he dreads it and at the same time he does everything to make it happen. […] He uses alcohol to calm his mind. Rest, decompress, stop stressing and then see the world through a filter. It is obligatory for him. “Not to mention the bereavements that have darkened his life in recent years, with the death of his older brother Thierry and his mother Solange, in 2019, then of his sister Nelly-Marina last year. So many hard knocks that awaken lost memories…

But Renaud did not flinch: he understood that work was ultimately the best way not to think too much and dwell on his dark thoughts. He returns with a new album, a disc of thirteen covers entitled metic, where he revisits titles by Moustaki, Ferrat, Brassens, Montand and Reggiani, all artists who have inspired his career. He already has a second album in preparation to pay tribute in particular to Gainsbourg.

“A god for drunkards!” »

On the health side, he is doing better since his operation last year, where he was put in a stent due to a clogged artery, and he is currently undergoing therapy with a shrink “very sympathetic”. If he still smokes, he has gone from four packs of cigarettes to one a day and has not drunk a drop of alcohol for more than a year. “I still have little temptations, but I’m holding on,” he swears in the JDD. “I have paid my tribute. When I think of how many times I drove home with 2.5 grams in my blood… There must be a god for drunks! »

This May 10, he is in the spotlight of a special evening on France 2, where he will celebrate his 70th birthday in songs with Calogero, Patrick Bruel, Zaz, Jean-Louis Aubert, Axelle Red, Bénabar, his protégé Gauvain Sers and his buddy Dave. The next day, he will meet with his family and a small committee to blow out his candles, in particular with the actor Jean-Paul Rouve. Before returning to the calm of L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, his lair in the Vaucluse.

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