True to tradition, the next Telethon will take place the first weekend of December, i.e. next Friday December 8 and Saturday December 9 on France 2 and France 3. Like every year, artists, volunteers and scientists will launch calls for donations to finance research projects on genetic neuromuscular diseases. A crucial charity event for Vianney, who rightly agreed to be the godfather of this 37th edition after having participated twice in 2016 and 2020 in the television marathon. In fact, the 32-year-old singer has a very personal reason for wanting to invest, as he revealed in an interview with Tele-Leisurepublished this Monday, November 27.
“I try to be a sponsor invested in terms of time and heart. I have had the desire in my heart for a long time but, this year, it is special, since I suffered a loss that gives me a lot of strength“, began the interpreter of Not here. And to continue with a painful revelation: “My partner’s mother was ill. She had multiple sclerosis and was disabled. She left this year. This pushes me even more to get involved.” As a reminder, Vianney has shared the life of cellist Catherine Robert since 2016. Already the mother of a little girl, born from a previous relationship, the latter married the artist in July 2020, before giving birth to their son Edgar on October 19, 2021. Multiple sclerosis, which killed his mother, is an autoimmune disease that affects the central nervous system.
If Vianney agreed to sponsor this new edition of the Telethon, it is also because he has more free time since he decided to stop touring for several years: “I always wanted to invest more in the Telethon but I couldn’t, with the tours and the albums. A year ago, I made the decision to no longer do the stage. So the timing was perfect. I now have a little more time for mine, for my studio projects but also for these associations that I want to help“explained the singer and composer. “I discussed it with my record company because we’re releasing an album [intitulé À 2 à 3, ndlr] at the same time. So that’s time I’m not spending on promotion. I am surrounded by people who are very human and who have completely followed my approach. They never tried to distract me from this mission.”
>> PHOTOS – Alain Delon, Jane Birkin, Pierre Perret… These stars who were sponsors of the Telethon
Vianney’s mother-in-law was a “woman full of joy”
This is not the first time that Vianney has mentioned the death of his mother-in-law in the media. In the show Fort Boyard, broadcast on July 8 on France 2, the father revealed that he participated in the game show on behalf of his wife’s mother, in order to raise funds for the Arsep Foundation, which has existed since 1969 and which fights for research into Multiple Sclerosis. “It’s a nervous illness. There are perhaps 115,000 people affected, who will look at us and see that we are thinking about them, that we are talking about them”, he began. On his momentum, the singer of the title I am leaving had indicated that the choice of this association made him “touched very personally” since her mother-in-law “died this year from this disease”. And to salute the memory of this “woman full of joy, full of life, who would have loved everything that happens here” : “When she left, it was the time when Father Fouras was recruiting. I applied and I said: ‘I want to do it. For her, but especially for all the others who count on us, who count on Arsep.”
Photo credits: Bruno Bebert-Christophe Clovis / Bestimage