"I did not want to admit his death," says Pierre Billon

It's been a year since Johnny Hallyday pbaded away. Since then, many people have spoken about their story with the taulier.
Laeticia Hallyday, Laura Smet, Eddy Mitchell,
Bernard Montiel or Line Renaud … Relatives (and less loved ones), who shared their love, their sadness, their rancor, or just were lathered.

On the occasion of the release of his book Johnny, somewhere an eagle, mid-November, 20 minutes has collected the testimony of
Pierre Billon, friend and former producer of Johnny. "Bibi", as the "idol of the young" called him, spoke about this unusual friendship, through moving, comical or tragic anecdotes. Because to be friends with Johnny, it was …

Raise the cast in Miami

"I met Johnny in 1976 on a Carpentier show. I was in the entourage of Sardou, and I made songs for them from time to time. I made one for Johnny, who impressed me seriously. After I made him a tube, Heart in twohe was so happy with the song that was number one that he gave me a motorcycle, a 900 Kawasaki. There we started to ride together, but I was not yet his producer. Then there was I forgot to live. Afterwards, Johnny wanted me to put him on the sport to prepare his future show "Mad Max". We went to Miami both, we went running in the morning … When you live daily you become a friend. And there was a Johnny wise, kind, disciplined, moderately stopping smoking … This is where he got into the sport. And I became his producer. "

See the rocker gerber his tartar

"We had a hard rhythm [pendant le spectacle « Mad Max » au Palais des sports en 1982], two hours of show in the morning and two hours in the evening. That day, he had eaten too much, a tartare that Lulu had dressed. He goes on stage, and during the fight of the show, he takes a spear. As usual, he goes next to the garden to take a hemoglobin capsule, comes back on stage and crunches, bleeds and falls on his knees in front of the microphone. The public was chanting "Johnny! Johnny! "But that day, I tell myself that he really bleeds a lot … That he had to hurt himself … In fact, he was in the process of stacking his tartar! But direct after, he attacks the song, without a doubt. The scene was his oxygen, he was sending.

Being fattened overnight

[En 1984, Johnny informe Pierre Billon qu’il n’est plus son producteur] "I did not have much to say, I did not really have the power anymore. What was lacking in Johnny was an audience of intellectuals. Nathalie Baye brought him. At first I was a little mouth and I wanted to Nathalie, but thinking I told myself she was right. With Tennessee, then the album written and directed by Michel Berger … She did well finally. That I was made heavy at the time, anyway I could not work with them, I was not at all the same kind of cam that Berger, whom I loved very much. "

Roll with your friend

"From the moment I stopped working with him, we started making trips together, almost initiatory. Road trips in the United States. I had already done, but never a big one in 1990, the first for Johnny. Afterwards we became much more of the road brothers than anything else ".

Believe it until the end

[Le 30 novembre 2017, Johnny et Laeticia invitent certains proches à dîner dans leur maison de Marnes-la-Coquette] "That night, I badured Johnny," of course you'll get by, you do not have a choice, "and then," I kiss you, kiss, next Thursday. " Then his friend Bouillon arrived, he said he would bring oysters the week after … The first thing I felt when I was told he was gone, I thought, "Shit, I made a mistake, I lied to him, shit. " But in my head there was no doubt. Leaving there we thought he was skinny but he was going to bother. My mother, I saw her go. I knew the system well, in the end she was no longer there. But at no time was Johnny like that! Earlier in the evening, we watched our movie [celui du road trip 2016] quietly. It is also at the end of the film that I cried. It screwed me up. In truth it's the end of the film that made us sad. It was a fantastic moment that we had lived, the film was very very beautiful, in the end we were all hugging each other … After the movie, Johnny went back to his room and we went out to smoke a cigarette, even if we had all stopped smoking in theory … And there we cried. You're crying because it's the end of a beautiful movie, but you know we'll do it again. "

Mourning your friend

"I did not want to admit his death. None of us. But we knew it was true, because we had seen it in the coffin. When I saw it I said to myself, this is it, this time there it is, my friend. He has done so much bullshit every time, even in Los Angeles, never did I believe it, you laugh! In my head I thought you're laughing or whatever, he'll be fine. And I thought he was going out every time. And there he had told me, he left me a message saying, "I caught a bastard, I'm very very well cared for, do not worry it's like everything else, it will be just a bad memory "".