Aya Nakamura had to sing Édith Piaf well, but not for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games

CULTURE – The truth after months of rumors. Singer Aya Nakamura revealed this Thursday, November 28 in the show C to you that she was supposed to interpret La vie en rose of Édith Piaf in public… but not at all for the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.

The artist from Aulnay-sous-Bois was interviewed on Vogue World Paris, where she performed her song Fly Place Vendôme in front of an audience of stars. The event took place on June 23, just one month before the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.

“Before doing this event, there was a problem with the Olympics. I must have been a bit excluded to just do the Olympics, because it was in Paris. So the Olympics didn’t want me to do it, Anna Wintour [rédactrice en cheffe de Vogue et surnommée la “papesse de la mode”, NDLR] had to discuss with the Olympics because I had to do it. So I wasn’t supposed to do that thing at all.”says Aya Nakamura.

« I wasn’t supposed to sing it at the Olympics! »

And to reveal: “Basically I had to sing Édith Piaf at that moment. I wasn’t supposed to sing it at the Olympics! » At the start of the year, information circulated about a possible performance by Aya Nakamura on Édith Piaf at the Olympic Games. The information was revealed by L’Express, who assured that it was a request from Emmanuel Macron. The rumor of the presence of the artist born in Bamako at the Olympics, then the one revealing that she was going to take over Édith Piaf, had provoked the anger and even hatred of the far right.

So faced with the controversy, Aya Nakamura decided not to sing La vie en rose at Vogue World Paris. “I said, “well if I do this thing I’m not singing Édith Piaf but a piece of my own”. That way, the Olympic committee was happy,” she continues, regretting “everything (the) is in trouble around that”.

At the Olympics, Aya Nakamura finally won unanimous support (with the exception of the far right once again) with her medley of titles with the Republican Guard and in particular for her resumption of For Me Formidable by Charles Aznavour. A song by Edith Piaf was indeed covered during the Olympics, but by Céline Dion at the very end of the evening, in apotheosis on the Eiffel Tower.

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