The ex-tennis player and the singer-actress have been together since 2008 and are parents to little Marin, aged 7. However, the romance of Nolwenn Leroy and Arnaud Clément was not obvious at the start. It even took the Breton woman some time to admit her feelings…
Arnaud Clément: Initially, his partner Nolwenn Leroy didn’t want him…
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Last September, she triumphed in the series Brocéliande on TF1 and her fans are impatiently awaiting the release of her next album, she who has not published one since The Cavale in 2021. Accomplished artist and mother at 42Nolwenn Leroy prefers to devote herself to her family life and her little Marin, the child she had with Arnaud Clément in 2017. The clan takes advantage of the annual break in the tennis season to rest. Because, although he retired from playing in 2013, Arnaud is very busy. TV commentator for Prime Video and Eurosport, the man who celebrates his 47th birthday this Tuesday, December 17, 2024, is also sports director of the Challenger 125 tournaments in Aix-en-Provence (his hometown) and Challenger 100 in Brest (in his native Finistère). his partner).
When their schedule allows, the family recharges their batteries in the garden of their main residence, a quiet house located a few kilometers from Aix-en-Provence (Bouches-du-Rhône). “It’s my second home. My heart is there, confided the singer in 2013, in the columns of the newspaper Provence. This region has always fascinated me through Pagnol’s novels, I walk there a lot, it’s easy to feel good there.” And yet this happiness which is hers, Nolwenn Leroy could never have known it. In 2008, she just finished touring her album Natural Stories when friends invite him to a meal. Around the table, she notices a charming thirty-year-old who has just reached the final of the Australian Open in doubles: Arnaud Clément. But, if love at first sight is immediate, the Breton represses her feelings. “I swore to myself that I would never fall in love with an athlete for family reasons”she admitted years later to the magazine Gala.
It should be explained that Nolwenn is the daughter of a former professional footballer named Jean-Luc Le Magueresse. When she was born in September 1982, he was playing as a defender at Stade Brestois. Four years later, he transferred to Matra Racing in Paris. Then to Lens in Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Guingamp in Côtes d’Armor. Her daughter therefore lived her early years tossed between her beloved Brittany, Île-de-France and the North. These moves left their mark on her. Especially since, when she was 11 her parents divorced and she went to live with her mother and her sister Kay in Saint-Yorre, in Allier.
Nolwenn Leroy’s father speaks
Nine years after this separation, when Nolwenn became famous thanks to the Star Academy on TF1, Jean-Luc Le Magueresse spoke in the media to recount the trauma experienced by his daughter and give his version of the divorce. “I feel like I’m finally living with my daughter (thanks to TV, Editor’s note) ! Contrary to what has been said, it is not an abandonment of the family, but a divorce that went badly, he testified in The Parisian. When we separated, I was playing in Lens and my wife went to live with our two daughters in Lille, then in Vichy. I could only see them during school holidays. Afterwards, I rebuilt my life and my ex-wife demanded that I never see my two daughters in the presence of my new family. I did this for a year. I ended up believing that my new family had as many rights as Nolwenn and her sister (…) I never cut ties, I continued to write and telephone.”
More her daughter had a very difficult time during this period. “Nolwenn often responded to me with reproaches. I missed her a lot, I was sad, but I never missed a Christmas, nor a birthday present (…) I am constantly forced to justify myself on what has been written concerning this supposed abandonment. Nolwenn also adopted this version… Maybe I didn’t give them enough time. I was 21 when Nolwenn was born…”
We understand after this that Nolwenn did not immediately want to live with a tennis player who travels around the world several times each year! However, that is exactly what happened. For five years, until Arnaud’s retirement, his lover followed him when she couldin the United States, England or Germany, in the major tournaments which allowed him to win seven million dollars in winnings during his career. From 2013 to 2015, he was captain of the French Davis Cup team. He even reached the final in 2014, only beaten by the Swiss legend Roger Federer.
When will we have a second child?
It was only two years later that the couple, she was then 35 years old and he was 40 years old, finally settled down to give birth to a little boy, Marin. Despite her complicated childhood, Nolwenn found the courage to start a family herself. Before enlarging it one day? “Wow, we’re not there yet! tempered the singer last September in the show One hour broadcast on RMC. I really want to, but forecasts aren’t really my thing. […] Maybe I’m not provoking things enough, I don’t know, but I trust the timing…”
