When Florent Pagny learned that he had lung cancer in 2021, his professional entourage had a clear idea of what to do: manage communication, smooth information, protect image. “Production told me: “We’ll take care of everything…tells the singer in the columns of the Belgian magazine Evening Mag. Sa réponse a été sans appel : “I didn’t want to, It didn’t look like me.†Three words that sum up an entire philosophy of life.
What he describes next is a man who opened Instagram, a tool he says he uses “almost not”pour talk directly to people. Without filter, without press officer, without prepared formula. “For me, I was speaking to the few people who were subscribed to my account. I didn’t imagine that it was going to be taken up everywhere, to this shock wave”he confided. The video had in fact spread well beyond his circle of subscribers, touching millions of people in a few hours. A lesson on the power of social networks that the artist says he learned on this occasion.
Behind the public announcement, there was also a very concrete reality to manage: 110,000 people bought tickets for his tour 60 years old. “We had to warn the 110,000 people who had their tickets that I wouldn’t be there, I wouldn’t come. It had a strange effect when you were told that you were going to cancel. And you don’t know when you’re going to come back. This tile arrives and we enter a tunnel that we control a little less”he says with a frankness that does not seek to embellish things.
Florent Pagny: an artist who likes to tell things as they are
Florent Pagny, who is in a relationship with the Argentinian painter Azucena, did not dwell on his anxieties or his moments of doubt. He preferred to explain why he could not do anything other than be transparent. “It’s frank, tell it like it iswithout dramatizing, that has always been me. I have always been someone who faces everything and says things. I had just had the clinical result, I knew what was going to happen to me, that I would have treatment and that therefore, it couldn’t even be an offbeat tour.” A cold, almost soothing lucidity, which resembles him well.
Today cured, he reste prudent sans ªtre obsédé. “I’m doing my checks. I did one not long ago and it’s okay. But outside of these days, I don’t even think about it”he confided. His only real worry in these moments? Claustrophobia and apprehension of entering the MRI machine. “I’m careful, I know it can come back overnight“he adds soberly.
The Voice season 15: the coach bows out after a final straight line
This return to his illness comes in a particular context for Florent Pagny. In fact, he is a coach in the fifteenth season of The Voice on TF1 and it will be the last. “I had originally planned to do the 15th season. And thenhe events changed the course of things. And I found myself doing the 14th. But I will do the fifteenth anyway. And then I’ll leave everyone alone for a long time.”he announced in Télé-Star in 2017.
A page which is therefore turned, but without bitterness. Florent Pagny will have scored The Voice of his authentic imprint for many seasons but also thanks to his relationship with Tayc, his young colleague coach this year who seems to have added a nice final note to this professional adventure. The final will take place on May 30, and after that, he promised to bow out! We believe it and above all we hope it is for good reasons.
