“He was very modest on this subject”: this trauma that Johnny Hallyday shared with his daughters Jade and Joy

“They welcome us into their home, in Los Angeles, in the house where they moved, after the death of their father, 6 years ago. Jade is 19 years old, Joy 15. They grew up in the public eye and the flashes of the paparazzi, but this is the very first time that they have spoken on television”. This is how TF1 announced the interview with Johnny Hallyday’s two youngest daughters this Sunday, December 10 on TF1. They confided a few days ago to our colleagues at Paris Match but had therefore never yet expressed themselves on television. It was without, Laeticia Hallyday, their mother that Jade and Joy answered Audrey Crespo-Mara’s questions.

They confided that they missed their dad “a lot” and described it as “caring, generous and always present”. “Sometimes we had father and daughter restaurants”, said one of them. They specified that he took them to school and that he also picked them up without forgetting to take a vanilla ice cream on their way. “Dad, he was pretty cool.”, assured Joy. The teenage girls, who grew up far from France in the United States, described their father as “very very funny” but not only. “We understood that our father was not an ordinary person”they assured, emphasizing that Johnny Hallyday had “an aura” and a special presence. Very close to their dad, Jade and Joy Hallyday did not spend a single day without sending him videos and photos and vice versa. “We shared everything we did”remembered the youngest of the clan.

Abandoned by his father and mother

And that’s not all they shared with their late father… Indeed, Audrey Crespo-Mara recalled that the feeling of abandonment linked the father and his daughters. “The abandonment you experienced as a baby, he experienced it too. Abandoned by his father and mother, it was the great trauma of his life and he said he wanted to soothe your feeling of abandonment. Did you talk about it together?”, asked Thierry Ardisson’s wife. And Joy responds: “No, not too much… He was very modest on that subject and even in general, he was very modest”. “Mom explained to us that when he was little, he had to live with his aunt and his aunt’s husband,” the 15-year-old continued.

If he managed to repair his own abandonment by adopting Jade and Joy, as Laeticia Hallyday said? Absolutely. It was Jade who was the first to confirm her mother’s comments, reported by the journalist from Seven to eight. “Yes, I felt it too with the love he had towards us. It was a feeling of protection. He wanted to protect us very often, for example, when we were at school, we had field trips and Dad didn’t want to let us go because he was too afraid of the buses. He wanted us to stay home with him. He was very protective and he sent us a lot of messages: ‘I love you, Dad.'” , detailed Jade who entered university. And to conclude: “If we weren’t together, we would call each other or he would send us videos”. During the interview, the half-sisters of David Hallyday and Laura Smet testified to their pride in having had the interpreter of That I love you as a father. “We were lucky to be adopted by incredible parents”, they admitted. Concerning their biological parents, the young women assured that they had not tried to find out who they were. “I never really wanted to know who it was because I’m happy with the parents I have”, began Joy Hallyday. And Jade concludes: “It’s not very important to know who our biological parents are since they are not the ones who raised us, educated us. We are so happy and proud”.