This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Artist News
Johnny Hallyday dies
By Andy Malt | Published on Wednesday 6 December 2017
French musician Johnny Hallyday has died, following a diagnosis of lung cancer. He was 74.
Dubbed ‘the French Elvis’, Hallyday had a career spanning more than 50 years, and he was planning a new record and tour at the time of his death. He was admitted to hospital late last month, leading to new speculation about the state of his health – earlier this year he accused the media of overstating how unwell he was.
In a statement to Agence France Presse this morning, Hallyday’s wife Laeticia said: “Johnny Hallyday has left us. I write these words without believing them. But yet, it’s true. My man is no longer with us”.
Although he sold over 100 million records in his lifetime, Hallyday’s success never really travelled much outside of France. Still, he lived outside of the country for several years, in Switzerland and the US, after complaining that his home country’s taxes were too high.
Nevertheless, he was courted and celebrated by various French politicians over the years, and was made a knight of the French Legion Of Honor by then president Jacques Chirac in 1998.
And among those paying tribute last night was French president Emmanuel Macron, whose office said in a statement that “for more than 50 years, he was a vibrant icon”, while Macron himself tweeted that “we all have a bit of Johnny Hallyday in us”.
