The photographer died at the age of 60. He was found in his Parisian home in the fifteenth arrondissement on the night of Friday to Saturday. His mother, Nico, a former model, superstar of the sixties and muse of Andy Wahrol and drug addict. His father, according to him, was none other than Alain Delon. However, the latter never recognized him as a son despite paternity recognition procedures initiated as soon as he came of age.
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In April 2001, the host Thierry Ardisson invited him in his show "Tout le monde en parle" broadcast on France 2 on the occasion of the release of his book telling his story and entitled L'amour n'oublie jamais. "I'm often told that I look like Alain Delon. In the street it happens to me but it's more the taxi drivers, "he confided then. His real name Christian Aaron Päffgen, the man had finally decided to bear the maiden name of his grandmother, Alain Delon's mother: Boulogne.
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And for good reason, it was she who had taken him in at the age of five, when his mother, busy with his work and his frantic life of hippie New York, could no longer take care of him. Edith Boulogne, unlike her son, is convinced that Ari is her grandson. A year later, for fear of kidnapping, the grandmother placed him in boarding school for nine years, without informing his mother. "She said it, she wrote it. [...] But this adoption is brainwashed. More than the secret child, I was the child in the closet." Indeed, his existence was totally ignored when Alain Delon's other children, like Anthony Delon for example, came to play with the Boulogne family. "They were enjoying it while I was in boarding school."
"You will never be my son"
The rare interactions he was able to have with the actor were only disappointment for the young man of the time. A meeting at the notary after the death of his adoptive grandfather and a second at his grandmother's house. The latter was "the most intense encounter I had with him". He then recounts: "He is such a good actor and good actor that he first ate his tart, turning around so that we would not see him eat, then took me back to Paris by tapping me on the shoulder and telling me 'you're my buddy, you're my friend. But I'll tell you something, you're not my son, you'll never be my son. You don't have my eyes, you don't have my hair. I've only slept with your mother once.'"