“It was a part of my soul, I am devastated”: Laeticia Hallyday’s villa destroyed by fire in Los Angeles

“I pray,” wrote Laeticia Hallyday’s youngest daughter a few hours earlier, hoping that their villa and those of their neighbors and friends would escape the indomitable flames.

This Thursday morning, Laeticia Hallyday, who is still in France with Jade, wrote us these few words: “We are in shock. There are no words. Our house was much more than a shelter, it was a part of my soul, a refuge woven with memories of my husband’s precious objects that nothing can replace, of girls’ laughter, of sorrows, of love and shared dreams. She was the witness of our life after him, the guardian of our anchors and our future. The grief seems endless. I am devastated. I’m heartbroken. »

“We lost everything”

She also posted a long message on Instagram accompanied by a video of her neighborhood in flames: “We lost everything. There’s nothing left. I saw our house go to ashes, helpless in the face of the flames which took everything away. This video haunts my heart. It is within its walls that we learned to live with absence, to rebuild days lit by love despite the shadow of loss. »

Laeticia Hallyday moved to this house on the heights of Pacific Palisades with her daughters in May 2021 after the sale of their first property closer to the ocean. It held a lot of memories of their life with Johnny. But according to our information, all the objects which had been extracted from the property and repatriated for the “Johnny Hallyday” exhibition in 2023 and 2024 in Brussels then Paris, including his splendid blue AC Cobra sports car, are still kept in France. And were therefore miraculously spared.

Johnny’s objects gone up in smoke

We stayed there twice, in November 2021 and December 2023, the first time for a report in the footsteps of Johnny with Laeticia Hallyday, his producer Don Was and his guitarist Robin Le Mesurier, the second time for an interview with his daughters Jade and Joy before the arrival of the exhibition on their father in Paris. It was a beautiful house on three levels, with a garden and a small swimming pool at the back, but less large and opulent than their first villa. Always open to passing friends, the kitchen and living room were at the heart of this house and their new life. Both times, she invited us there for lunch.

Johnny was all around us. On the stairs, the living room, the garage, but especially in the office on the ground floor. She had recreated her office in Marnes-la-Coquette with her cowboy hats, an Indian chief’s headdress, a motorcycle helmet covered with the American flag, Easy Rider style, a work by Mr. Brainwash representing Elvis on vinyl records… The walls of the stairs were also covered with family photos and black and white shots of their American idols, Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean…

We remember in the toilets a large and magnificent portrait of Johnny in a suit taken by Renaud Corlouër and in the living room a photo of Laeticia reenacting “Emmanuelle” in a large wicker armchair. “The first time I came to your house, I was surprised not to find paintings by Picasso or Basquiat but photos of Elvis, James Dean, Marilyn,” Don Was had confessed to Laeticia during our first visit, completed on the roof terrace of the house, with a view of the neighborhood. Johnny believed in the American myth so much that he embodied it. And that’s why he was so popular. »

A neighborhood “chosen for its village atmosphere in the south of France”

During our two visits, Laeticia confided to us her attachment to this new house where she had resumed her life with her daughters after the death of her husband in December 2017. “Moving was painful but essential in our mourning and our reconstruction, we she admitted in November 2021. We stayed in this neighborhood where we have our habits and our friends. This is our refuge. We discovered it because Jade went to French school there. And we loved it for its village atmosphere in the south of France and its proximity to the ocean. »

“This is Johnny’s second death, what happened,” analyzes and moved André Boudou, Laeticia’s father. I have rarely heard my daughter scream in such pain when I spoke to her on the phone Wednesday evening. Fortunately, Joy, who remained in Los Angeles, is in a safe place, with a friend. But their entire neighborhood, the village, all the businesses they have frequented for 17 years burned. The firefighters no longer had water pressure, which is unimaginable in a country like the United States. According to reports, Johnny’s old house also burned down. »

When we interviewed Jade and Joy in December 2023, we were struck by the neon under which they sat side by side in the office. This message was written there in English. “Together, we will get through the challenges. We always get there.”