In a long daily interview on the occasion of a double record release and a tour which passes through the Grand Rex in Paris on Sunday, singer Sheila shows herself to be more combative and cashier than ever.
Tina Turner was for her “a kind of model, especially on stage” and his death was “a shock”. Michel Sardou “had a pig character”. She considers herself to be “a big weirdo”. The media rumor claiming that she was a man, the machismo of artists and record companies, cosmetic surgery, her refusal to retire and harassment from the celebrity press: the singer Sheila discusses all subjects, without taboo or language of wood, in a long interview published in Release Friday November 10. His news? A double record release and a tour which includes Le Grand Rex (full) Sunday November 12, 2023.
Sardou “didn’t bring back his strawberry too much”
During the golden age of French variety, in the 1970s, “there was no rivalry” between the artists, who met and had a lot of fun in the TV shows of Guy Lux and Maritie and Gilbert Carpentier, Sheila remembers in this interview. There is, however, one for which she had “less feeling” : Michel Sardou and his “Pig character”. “But when we were all together, he didn’t bring his strawberry too much”underlines Sheila, aged 78.
In this job “managed by men” for who he is “intolerable” that“a woman hangs on after forty years“, she also remembers “from a Carpentier show where I sang with Sylvie Vartan. When we finished, Johnny, Eddy Mitchell and Sardou told us: ‘It’s good, now the mothers can go home’.”
Tagged “straight beast”
“The tabloid press is just unbearable. They have ruined my life”also assures the singer who started at 16 with School’s Out (1963). “When France Sunday And Paris here have posted throughout France “Sheila is a man”, it was still hyperviolent. Sometimes I regret not being a guy to go and punch their faces”she adds.
Regarding her crossing of the desert after the left came to power with Mitterrand in 1981, she tackles: “I wasn’t Jack Lang’s best friend. At that time, I no longer had the card, I didn’t even have the ticket, I had nothing left at all. (…) I “I was labeled the ‘stupid right’ versus the ‘smart left’.” For her today, although it is “difficult to accept your wrinkles”there is no question of bowing out. “It shocks me when people talk to me about “retirement”. What a stupid word! It’s a second life.”