SERGE LAMA. The singer received a Victoire de la musique d’honneur on Friday, February 10. On this occasion, the 80-year-old artist shocked the audience by talking about the end of his career and his illness.
[Mis à jour le 11 février 2023 à 11h02] Friday, February 10, when he received a trophy of honor at the Victoires de la Musique ceremony, Serge Lama moved the assembly with a heartbreaking speech of thanks. Due to his health problems, the artist could not join on stage the singers Élodie Frégé, Santa and Mentissa who paid tribute to him. “I thank all the artists who sang my songs, who learned them, who made the effort […] And I thank the profession with which it has not always been easy for me, but I have managed to overcome all the barriers”, began the singer, who turns 80 on Saturday February 11.
With a lump in his throat, he added: “I am very moved, because this may be the last time tonight that I see an audience cheering me on my feet. It is even certainly the last time. […] My body can no longer keep up, I don’t want to sing sitting down”. At 80, Serge Lama announced the end of his career. “I had a great life, I did the job I wanted to do since I was 11,” he continued.
For Serge Lama, this Victory is a “last very pleasant hello to the profession”, in his own words, delivered during an interview granted to the Sunday newspaper. And this, despite his health problems. “I don’t want to show myself today. I prefer to stay on what I was. Today, I would have to sing sitting down. This is not what the public wants to see… Physically, I am very damaged “I have a lot of trouble walking. You know, it’s difficult. I’ve been living on one leg for almost sixty years now. The other doesn’t obey me and it’s this one that carries everything.” Now she is fed up“, confides the singer to the JDD.
Serge Lama had refused a Victoire de la Musique
If he explains receiving this Victory of Honor with “emotion”, Serge Lama had nevertheless refused it in 2013, when the organizers of the ceremony had wished to salute his fifty-year career. Physically diminished, Serge Lama had announced his retirement from the stage. After a first postponement of his last tour due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the singer declared in 2021 to RTL: “At my age, it is reasonable to retire from business because I did what I had to. to do in my life and I would like to enjoy my family a little bit.”
Serge Lama, the aftermath of his accident
His state of health, Serge Lama owes it mainly to a road accident on August 12, 1965. The singer, polytraumatized, spent a year lying on a bed and underwent a dozen operations. On the eve of his 80th birthday, he still suffers from it. “I have too much pain related to the after-effects of my accident. I started to walk eighteen months after this tragedy, but I have suffered all my life from lower back pain that shoots into my leg. C has become unbearable today”, he explained in the columns of the Parisianwhen confirming the end of his career on stage.