An exceptional interview.
For nearly a year, journalist Audrey Crespo-Mara followed Florent Pagny in his fight against lung cancer.
This Sunday, March 5, it was through three interviews, spaced out by a few months, that he answered questions from the journalist, and from the French.
This report, it is the singer himself who had the initiative by calling the interviewer one evening.
"In her call, a bet on the future"
she underlines.
The point on his illness and his reconstruction.
Month by month, place by place.
Yvelines, June 16, 2022
To begin this exclusive interview, the singer and former coach of "The Voice" explains how he discovered his lung cancer.
“I was coughing a lot.
I sang like a nightingale but as soon as I finished it didn't work at all.
It had become unbearable.
I went to check for myself.
[...] The tumor is very active but the fact that it is as it was, suggested that it had not had time to degenerate.
“Very quickly,
it takes up all the space.
You go into a medical spiral, it changes the scenery a bit.
You stay with your nausea, you really nap a lot.
The further one moves away from the injections, the more everything relaxes.
I didn't lose so much weight, I would have preferred to lose a little more
,” he jokes.
“Hair, body hair, everything is gone.
I put on the glasses to hide the side of the gaze that is a little too sickly.
But hey it's the same, everything comes back huh.
I hope that in six months you will see another.”
At this time of year, Florent Pagny is confident.
“That's what they call 100
% remission.
The first time it was almost as big as a kiwi, after two chemos I had a nutmeg and after that I still had four chemos and a month and a half off.
I had confirmation yesterday that apparently all the bad cells are dead..."
"In the end, there is only to rebuild, to regain strength, I want to let myself be carried away quietly, to live in an even more natural rhythm."
Galvanized by this news, the singer will decide to continue his life and leave for the lands of his wife, Azucena, in Patagonia.
New York, November 2022
The couple decides to go to the United States to help their daughter move.
During this interview, Florent Pagny found the appearance that we know him: brush hair, beard and without sunglasses.
But the fight is not over.
“It's going pretty well but when we saw each other in June there was nothing and three months later there are things.
The tumors appear very yellow and for me it is rather whitish.
It's not a recurrence because there is no infection, it would rather be ray scars
, ”reassures the singer.
However, he decides not to follow his immunotherapy treatment, claiming that the disease is
“taking even more of a life.
I followed the preventive menu but behind it I have to continue to live.
If something happens, we'll see but it's not going to take over.
I allow myself to take these six months without doing anything.
Audrey Crespo-Mara's reaction is clear:
"Are you a bit of a rebel?"
, she throws at him.
To which he replies:
“Since I was little I have been of this nature but I am not unconscious.
If ever there was anything more serious I would already be returning to France.
Patagonia, January 26, 2023
Since their last meeting in New York two months ago, things have changed for Florent Pagny... And not in the expected direction.
He is still in the middle of nowhere in his caravan in Patagonia.
“I found myself a week ago with a huge coughing fit.
In fact, the pictures aren't terrible.
There is a lymph node which has therefore fixed the risk of metastasis.
I'm going back to Paris in a few days to do a biopsy”
, he announces bluntly.
“This story sucks, it never ends. I didn't do the immunotherapy treatment so I have to go do it quickly. It's kind of my fault.
We are not going to be afraid [...] I wake up a little tired, that leads to another speech.
I can't lie, it's boring, it's not the scenario we were hoping for.
We're going to stop there because it's going to last too long..."
Read also“I feel better and better”: Florent Pagny gives reassuring news about his state of health
Less jovial than a few months earlier, the singer considers this ordeal as
“the least funny of my life.
It's not pleasant, it's not funny moments but until now I have mainly built my life with my destiny.
It was always me who decided the path to follow, there not.
“Illness can make me a little sadder.
But all my life I remain the same, with this child's soul.
It makes me sadder because I have this medical reality.”
In this event, Florent Pagny can count on his children and his wife whom he considers to be
“his team”
.
“I was very lucky and I took full advantage of it.
My greatest chance is to have met my better half
,” he concludes.