Died on May 1 at the age of 92, Régine had never recovered from the death of her son Lionel Rotcage. Married at just 17 years old, on November 7, 1947, to an apprentice leather worker named Paul Rotcage, the singer became a mother a year later. Unfortunately in 2006 when he had not even crossed the threshold of 60 years, he died of cancer. A drama for the interpreter of the title JI met the man of my life who never got to mourn her only child.
The one who had been named Chevalier of the Legion of Honor in 1995, had also entrusted to the magazine france sunday in 2018 how much this grief had upset her and broke her heart. “I lost my only son twelve years ago and I will never get over it. Lionel was a journalist and businessman, he died at the age of 58 of lung cancer. He suffered enormously from having to share me. We didn’t get along all the time, but we loved each other very much.” she revealed with great sadness and nostalgia.
In February 2009, on the occasion of her 80th birthday, Régine had also published a book dedicated to her late Lionel baptized Letter to my son. She said there : “I’m going to celebrate my 80th birthday and I would like to finally tell you who I am, everything that I’ve never told you, or anyone else… To tell you about me, about the men in my life, my father, my brother Maurice, Claude, my first and only love, you, and a few husbands and lovers… I would like to tell you in my own way everything you didn’t want to hear.”
Father of a daughter named Daphne (fruit of his love with Telsche Boorman), Lionel Rotcage had offered a sublime gift to Régine: that of becoming a grandmother. A way to keep a strong bond with his son for the artist who found a taste for life with his granddaughter. Having herself become the mother of a boy named Léo, Daphne had offered a great-grandson to the ex-wife of Roger Choukroun. “My life starts again“revealed the singer willingly admitting to feeling again”fresh as a girl” with journalists from TV Star in 2018.
Always very strong, Régine only rarely mentioned the death of her son and did not wish to dwell on her weaknesses or her sorrows. “I have a world of my own with my cracks, my sorrows. I don’t bother others with this“ she confided to this same magazine.