VALERY HACHE / AFP
Despite his success, the singer, seriously injured by gunshot on Monday at an area of the Travelers community in Biscarrosse, explained in several interviews why he had not completely abandoned the itinerant life.
The famous singer of “Color Gitano”, Kendji Girac, was seriously injured by a firearm on the night of Sunday April 21 to Monday April 22 in a busy travel area in Biscarosse, in the Landes. Aged 27, the artist has always proudly claimed his gypsy origins which have permeated his songs and influenced his career. Before being revealed in 2014 during his victory in season 3 of The Voice, Kendji grew up in the traveler community, a guitar in hand.
Contrast
If Kendji has become a star of French song, he has always kept an anchor in gypsy culture. While he spends his days frequenting VIPs, in prestigious Parisian addresses and some of the most popular venues, the artist said he found refuge in the evening with his family, in his residence in a medium-sized city in the great suburbs. Parisian, in an interview with Parisian published in 2020.
The young interpreter explained that he lived with around twenty relatives – his parents, his big brother and his two sisters, with spouses and children – in a small, modest pavilion with, at the back of the courtyard, sheltered from the gaze of passers-by, around ten caravans. “Few people imagine that I still live like this, but it’s my balance”, he told the newspaper. Depending on his desires and the weather, Kendji then alternates between nights “in the house” and those “in the caravan”. The latter “is a refuge in which I feel good, and I love hearing the sound of the rain rocking me”he indicated. “I still live like a gypsy”insisted the singer.
“More luxury, what will that change?”he asked himself. “I feel good here”he affirmed, ensuring that for nothing in the world, including “an apartment on the Champs-Élysées at 10 million euros”, he would give up “this little corner of paradise”. A few years earlier, he had rented an apartment for a little over a month, paying “4000 or 5000 euros per month”but he only stayed there for a week because he felt “alone, abandoned”.
Even after becoming the father of a little girl named Eva Alba in 2021, a daughter born from his relationship with his partner Soraya Miranda, Kendji did not do without his house on wheels. He specified in an interview with Femme Actuelle in 2022 that he was sleeping “Sometimes” in his caravan, when he had “the weather”. “In the summer on vacation, I take my caravan back”, he said. If in winter he most often lives in the Paris region, in summer, the young artist said he used to go to Sanary-sur-Mer, in the Var. But the singer also has a house in Dordogne.
