To sign his return to the French -speaking music scene, Garou has chosen an evocative title for his new album. With “a better next day”, the artist with a raucous and singular voice intends to open a new chapter of his life, returned from his sumptuous years under the spotlight. Because Garou suffered for a long time, as he entrusted this Saturday, May 3, 2025 to Isabelle Ithurburu in “50’Inside” on TF1 on Saturday. A particularly touching interview in which the Quebec artist indulges as rarely before …
“There was too much attention to me, it hurt me”
Remember: we are in 1998 when the phenomenon of musical “Notre-Dame de Paris” agitates crowds. Everywhere in France, the public is jostling to attend one of the representations that stages a cast of young artists then in their beginnings, like Hélène Ségara, Patrick Fiori and a certain Garou. Originally from Quebec, it is he who is chosen to interpret the character of Quasimodo. He does not know it yet, but this role will propel his career into no time. Maybe even too quickly. “I have never had so much ambition, it was even an accident that I do this job,” he explains years later in “50’Inside”. No, Garou couldn’t see himself shining. Far from maintaining a fierce desire to make yourself known and recognized, he ended up not really understanding what happens to him: “I was no longer myself, I was quasimodo (…) Before, I was really in the observation of people, I liked to understand people. And then there was too much attention to me.”
Garou’s new life far from the spotlight
So Garou returned to sources. But not before going through hectic years, in one of the people magazines, where her romance with singer Lorie notably made the headlines. The rhinestones, the glitter, ended up getting to the head. And like many artists before him, the singer has no longer supported all this media attention. So it was in Quebec that he found serenity, surrounded by nature, in a house that occupies most of his energy. “It is simplicity. I always have something to do,” he rejoices in “50’Inside”. Besides, the singer admits taking great pleasure in going incognito: “When I go to places where no one knows me, I light up”. If he decided to come back with a new album, it’s without pressure, “not at all in an obsession with success”: “It’s just the taste to restore new things, to offer them. And if people don’t want them, I will not be angry.”
“The only difficulty that my daughter has given me is the absence”
And then there are loved ones, family, those who know the real garou. Like her only daughter, Emelie, now 23 years old, of which he is very close. “We look likely” he confides, amused. But in the past, things have not always been so simple between father and daughter. Because Emelie was also the victim of the overwhelming success of her dad: “The only difficulty that my daughter gave me is the absence, that’s harder (…) She blames me, but as it is she who is no longer there now, who does not stop traveling, I think she returned the elevator well.”
