Françoise Hardy in pain before her death: “In the end it became hellish”

After years of fighting cancer, Françoise Hardy finally gave up on June 11. A disappearance which shocked the French musical scene, but also and above all those close to him, including Jean-Marie Périer, his first love and eternal friend.

He promised to love her until the end, and he kept his word. In 2022, at the microphone of RTL, Jean-Marie Périer declared that Françoise Hardy would remain the love of his life, his soul mate. After years of battling cancer, the singer died on June 11, 2024, at the age of 80. Her disappearance left a great void in the heart of this great romantic, who had met her for the first time in 1963: “I have never seen more attractive and I fell madly in love with her straight away,” had -he confided in 2013 in the columns of La Dépêche.

Their story, although passionate, was short-lived and ended when Françoise Hardy met Jacques Dutronc, with whom she formed one of the most emblematic couples of the Yé-yé years.

Love has therefore given way to friendship; Françoise Hardy and Jean-Marie Périer never left each other. “Never, until… I was lucky enough to live 300 m from her house for a year. I saw her until the end. She suffered for 15 years and in the end it became hellish,” the photographer told Le Parisien with emotion in an article published this Thursday, July 11. “I was supposed to see her on Saturday, and on Friday night she sent me a message, a photo of her screen in the dark with simply written: ‘don’t come tomorrow…’ Then it was the hospital, and the end …” A death which moves deeply, but which was expected by Françoise Hardy, exhausted after so many years of fierce struggle, fifty-five chemotherapies and incessant pain.

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