Londoners know it well: there is no need to take a taxi to return from Heathrow airport. The Heathrow Express, the ultra-fast train which connects the platform to Paddington Station in seventeen minutes, costs 25 pounds sterling, compared to around 100 pounds for a taxi. But, since 2022, the terminals have also been linked to the city center of the capital by the Elizabeth Line, a driverless metro which reaches Bond Street station in forty-five minutes, at the much more economical price of 6.70 pounds sterling.
On November 5, it was this line that Jean-Jacques Goldman and his wife, Nathalie, took at the end of the morning to reach their home. The couple were returning from Marseille, where they have had a large apartment for more than twenty years, after a week of family vacation in Italy. These back and forth trips between the Marseille city and the United Kingdom are usual for Jean-Jacques and Nathalie, whose two eldest daughters, Maya and Kimi, are now studying in France. Only Rose, 17, still lives with them.
The singer announced it when he retired from musical life in 2002: he wanted to accompany his young children until they came of age and did not intend to deviate from his principle. Rose not yet being an adult, Goldman, happy in the relative anonymity he enjoyed in London, remained faithful to his rule. Even the oldest host, his friend Michel Drucker, was unable to convince him to participate in the special show he will dedicate to him at the end of December. “I still talk with him,” confides the public service figure. But he told me that he preferred to remain discreet. While encouraging my show. »
The last time he performed at Les Enfoirés, in 2016, he was in a state of total stress because he had to sing a song!
Because Goldman may have left the stage, but not the music. Everyone who speaks to him, who writes to him, knows that he has not given up on his art. Asked by Gautier Capuçon last year, he wrote a song for him, “Pense à nous”, recorded with the children's choirs of the Maîtrise de Radio France de Paris and Bondy, the production of which he supervised in the studio. When Céline Dion's teams contacted him for the diva's next French album, expected in September 2025, he responded. And, if he has not yet sent the two titles he is working on, he will do everything to stay as close and accurate as possible to what the star has experienced in recent years. Wasn't it him who, upon the death of René Angélil, in 2016, knew how to find the words to put Céline's mourning into music?
“He’s a man who still listens to a lot of music,” says one of the rare singers who interacts with him. But which is no longer seen at all in the light. Not only does he not have the codes of today's business, but above all he is happy to no longer have to live with fear in his stomach. The last time he performed at Les Enfoirés, in 2016, he was in a state of total stress because he had to sing a song! »
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Not only does he regularly vacation at Club Med, but he even rents Airbnbs without it making the headlines
Jean-Jacques is not, however, an untouchable hermit: he or his collaborator Alexis respond to all requests… in a negative way 99% of the time, whether for a film, a book, a collaboration or a speaking engagement . But when Goldman is touched in the heart, he does not hesitate to take up his pen, as last September to thank Thibault Christophe, who wrote the novel “Diary of a fan” in which he recounts his passion for the author of “He was life-changing.”
If Goldman still makes millions of French people dream – there are around a hundred radio appearances per day! – he only aspires to the simplest of existences. Like when he ran the Sport 2000 boutique in Montrouge, at the end of the 1970s. “In this regard, he generally succeeded in his bet,” continues this relative. Not only does he regularly vacation at Club Med, but he even rents Airbnbs without it making the headlines. »
Yes, the Goldman couple spent a few days this summer on the cycle route which links Roscoff to Concarneau, finding accommodation on the platform along the route. It was enough for him to come across a fan owner in Scaër on July 24 for social networks to publicly reveal this non-event.
“He is always touched when people talk to him about his songs, about what he meant to them or what he still represents,” said this acquaintance. He likes less those who make an exegesis of his work in books…”
As he is not someone who wants to rush fans, he is not the type to multiply reissues
A former Sony executive
If Jean-Jacques Goldman did not appreciate the essay that Ivan Jablonka devoted to him last year, which sold more than 20,000 copies, he smiled in front of all this press which praised him to the skies, this one even who ridiculed him in the 1980s. “He had a good formula to sum up the excitement, he spoke of “Teleramism”, a sign that he is not fooled by anything. »
The one who asked journalists for a cover letter before accepting an interview also complained quite a bit about “VSD”, the weekly (which has since become monthly) which had estimated that its copyright brought in 2 million euros per year. “These figures are fanciful,” said a former Sony executive. Certainly Jean-Jacques has always had a higher percentage of royalties than the others. But his last studio album was released twenty-four years ago! As he is not someone who wants to rush fans, he is not the type to multiply reissues. »
He has not spoken out against any musical project which allows his work to continue to live
He agreed to see his last two live records released on vinyl on November 22 – they were only released on CD at the time. But he insisted that these be the “last” releases, specifies the artist's unofficial website, jjgoldman.net. The most present of those absent has therefore achieved the incredible feat of maintaining immense popularity by doing… nothing. From The Goldman Legacy to the Goldmen – these tribute bands which now fill the Zénith –, he has not spoken out against any musical project which allows his work to continue to live and to be performed in increasingly larger venues , in front of an increasingly large audience.
Even “at the end of his dreams”, he had not imagined having won the hearts of the public to this extent. One would have thought that his withdrawal would eventually tire the fans. That his refusal of any rock'n'roll attitude would lock him into the role of the sad sire of French song. But no. The less Jean-Jacques does, the bigger Goldman is. What if this was the true definition of success?
