“Writing is the only process I know. I knew that telling this story would refocus me, even if I wasn’t sure of the outcome”specifies Stéphane Guillon from the outset to explain the reason which pushed him to write a new novel. In No more laughing (Albin Michel, 2024), the 60-year-old man talks about his last romance which ended badly. While he was married to Muriel Cousin, with whom he had a daughter and with whom he formed a blended family of 7 children, the columnist decided to leave everything to form a relationship with “a young girl he barely knows”, “trendy soft medicine and hard drugs”as our colleagues write.
A love story that won’t last and after “makes you go crazy” Stéphane Guillon, Sophie Maréchal, 25 years his junior, will end up “firing him for a terse e-mail which leaves him bloodless, totally depressed”. So much so that the comedian, who spoke about this well-known actress that he loved, even thought of the worst. “I thought about ending it”he explains to Monde. Now in a better place, he is releasing his new book where he dwells on this toxic relationship. “When, like me, you have spent your time tearing down others, people’s first reaction is to say to themselves: ‘You left your wife and your kids, and you want people to feel sorry for you, well, well done for your face!”he says.
Stéphane Guillon and Sophie Maréchal, a “complicated” story
With a 25-year gap between him and his former partner, Stéphane Guillon experienced some pretty special moments. “When I was with her, the fear of aging was exacerbatedI could no longer stand my white hair. I was embarrassed by the looks of people in the street, I felt disconnected from my family, friends and children. It was complicated for her and for me.”describes the man who had left his wife and children for the young blonde, before saying more about what he liked about the young actress: “I have never before or since been attracted to a younger woman. I would have preferred that she were fifteen or twenty years older. It was a little piece of woman, not a model at alla meeting of souls, in fact.”
