This Thursday, December 5, 2024, it will be seven years to the day since Johnny Hallyday left us. His fans plan to honor his memory in Paris during a ceremony which will be organized at the Madeleine church, where a tribute in his memory took place, on December 9, 2017. In a long interview for Paris Matchwhich our colleagues have just put online on their website this Wednesday evening, his eldest daughter Laura Smet comes out of the silence. She talks about her joys, her sorrows, and in particular her end of life. Was he happy in the last years of his life?
“He was someone who was in power, and was trying to try to get back to the way he was before, but he couldn't do it. I felt a slight depression settling into his life. But I'm convinced he was happy in Los Angeles. He lived this American dream that he had been waiting for since childhood… He was more peaceful but had lost a little of his joy of living. He had less of this animal thing, he was more trained…“, replied Laura Smet. Affected by stage 4 lung cancer, metastasized to the liver, stomach, and pancreas, Johnny Hallyday died on December 5, 2017, at the age of 74, after more than a year of destructive treatments against an illness that he never stopped pushing back.
Did he talk about it, about his state of health? “No, but I remember one time he looked at me because he must have seen that I was worried. He was in his dressing room with an oxygen tank. He was facing the mirror, and he turned around: 'No, don't worry.' That was enough for me. He wouldn't have lied to me, he would wink at me and I understood that it was okay. He never complained during his illness. He never complained at all. Never, never, never, never, never. But his end was really hard for everyone. It was special… Even in a film we would have found it 'too much'.“
Death of Johnny Hallyday, the painful memories of Laura Smet
Johnny Hallyday was condemned: his hours were numbered. But was he aware of it? “I don't think he knew that. And he was very afraid of deaththat's why he hated the night so much, like I hate seeing the day fall. He didn't want to stay in the hospital, he wanted to go home, even if there were some rather unusual vibes in Marnes-la-Coquette at that time..” Laura Smet stayed close to him: “I came every day, but I wasn't going to talk to him about how I felt. There were somewhat violent exchanges between him and me. But I just came to tell him my total, intact love.”
Johnny Hallyday then returned home, where he will breathe his last: “At the Bizet clinic, David, his wife (Laeticia, editor’s note) and I were told that it was over. But we were also told that he did not want to stay there and that he was going to be in palliative care at home. He didn't know that, so he shouldn't have said it. It was horrible… I reassure myself by thinking that we are not the only ones who have experienced this kind of thing. But he could have had a ten times better end of life.”
On December 9, 2017, at Madeleine, the whole of France paid tribute to him. A trying moment for Laura Smet: “I was completely absent. I had tinnitus, I could hear ringing in my ears. I didn't understand anything about that day.”
