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Vanessa rests her charm in a languid cat's gaze. But she's not faking it. The ex-Lolita has nothing more to prove. Full with love, she spends all her days with Lily-Rose Melody, her 22-month-old daughter, and Johnny Depp, her "beloved." Her concerts at the Olympia, from March 20 to 26, and at the Zenith, May 30, are soothing rendezvous. In "Bliss," her new album, she sings about her life, her man ("I've stopped looking for myself / Since I've found you / The best person in me / Deep inside, is always you"), her daughter ("You give life its taste / I must confess, I envy you / You are everything that gives desire / Gives me life / Melody")... Vanessa in Paradis, for real. P.M.: When listening to your album, one thinks that for you to dare have such a personal tone, so intimate, you must feel comfortable inside your skin. V.P.: If one is not comfortable, it's obvious: the songs are sad, on the whole things are dark. Unless you're making believe, writing what you imagine. Me, I have the luck to live it. That's what's incredible. P.M.: You can't get over it? V.P.: I can't get over having such an amount of luck. I even suffer from a guilty feeling. Sometimes I think that if there are former lives, I had a really bad previous life to be so lucky in this one. It's rare to be happy at this level. P.M.: Is this painful former life your confiscated adolescence? V.P.: I can't let you say that. No one stole my adolescence. Or it was me, and me alone, because I always made my decisions myself. No one ever pushed me. Even when I decided to do "The School of Fans" at the age of 8, it's because I wanted to. If things didn't always go so great; if between me and France, there's not a great love story, I can understand it. There were reasons for that: a small girl, agressively teen-aged, attacked... I've made my analysis since. My adolescence was like all adolescences. And if I was pertubed a little, I don't have the right to have people feel sorry for me. I had, like everyone, glaucous desires and dark days. But I had the luck to be surrounded by sound people, by my family, by a lot of love and affection. That gave me the desire to continue, to stick by myself, to take life by the reins. The experience made me stronger. P.M.: What strikes one when listening to you, in "Bliss" in particular, is the air of harmony you seem to have now. V.P.: Because there is harmony in my heart. I live with the man whom I love. Together we have a little girl in good health who is a radiant sun. This album, I did it for them, for us. By making it, I had the endless desire to make them proud of me. For Lily-Rose, it will be necessary that I wait a little for her to understand. P.M.: Johnny Depp appears on the album. Is there not a danger in the private and professional life interfering with one another? V.P.: There's a danger when one does not respect the other. When one is not the other's best friend. We can work together, we can be separated by work. What is essential is to maintain -- in person, by telephone, or fax -- a relationship where there is a lot of love, respect, and generosity. P.M.: In a song dedicated to your daughter, you mentiont the difficulty of remaining pure "in a world which is less than pure." Do you think that children are born good and it's society that corrupts them? V.P.: Yes. There are obviously exceptions. I'm thinking in particular of the film that was called "Bad Seed." But even if they'll be a bad seed later on, I think that during the first three years of their life they are pure, innocent. P.M.: Yeah, but at 4 years old, they start to tear the wings off butterflies... V.P.: They're not aware of it. Me, when I was a little girl, I adored saying insults. I found it brilliant because that made adults react. Children are unaware of the violence of words, of gestures. One of my musician's daughters cut the tail off a cat. She did not do it maliciously: she was experimenting. (Laughs.) P.M.: How do you protect Lily-Rose from this impure world? V.P.: By having it so there are neither secrets nor taboos between us. I love my daughter, I protect her, even over-protect her. When she runs around a table, I run quicker than her. But I'll never put her in a cocoon, because when she goes to school, or later, gets to 18 or 20 years old, I won't always be there to preserve that cocoon. At that time in life, youe receives incredible blows. You're not prepared to face that existance. I wish to be present then, but leave her her space, I will explain it to her, if she wants to listen to me. The difficult is to protect her without smothering her. I believe I had to prepare myself more than her, because inevitably, one day, she will be sad, she will be hurt. P.M.: Is her father also protective? V.P.: Yes. Perhaps more than me. P.M.: When you're touring, how do you organize things? V.P.: It's a little complicated. I generally make it so I'm near her. That's the rule no matter what, if I can't be near her I don't go. I can't live without my daughter. P.M.: On the cover of the CD, it's you? V.P.: No, it's my beloved who took the photograph and altered it on the computer. Me, I made the simple little drawings inside. They don't have a great deal of meaning. It's just to make the album seem homemade. I did not make it by myself, but I put a lot of myself into it. P.M.: It gives the impression of a photo-album that a mother makes for her child when he's born. Even your daughter's voice is heard on the album. It lacks only a lock of hair. V.P.: That's what I wanted. To know that, in twenty or thirty years, this album will still exist. That it's indestructible. Because to lose a photo-album, that's terrible. P.M.: In the multitude of places between France and the U.S., where do you live most frequently? V.P.: I live where I work. And when I don't work, I live where my beloved works. And when he doesn't work either, we live in our house in the South of France. P.M.: It's pretty, the expression "my beloved." Wouldn't you prefer to say "my husband"? V.P.: But we're not married! P.M.: That's exactly what I meant to point out. V.P.: I don't feel like I'm missing anything. We are neither for not against marriage. The question of whether to or not is simply not on the agenda. When I was younger, before I knew what I know now, I fantasized about marriage like many girls do, about taking his name, all that. Us, we decided to start immediately by having a baby. That didn't fall to us from the sky. Lily-Rose was wanted. We decided immediately, three months after the beginning of our relationship. In the end... it's a longer story... I won't go into details. Let's say simply that he's someone I've loved for a very long time. And who I'd met several times. P.M.: What attracted you to him? V.P.: Everything. Even his faults. Because fortunately, he has some. P.M.: On your album, there's this lyric: "I've finished looking for myself since I've found you." That's what you feel? V.P.: Yes. I don't believe in a life full of films, music, success , all only for me. I've found that to spend life alone, it's a waste of life. I'm not the only girl who's searched for the man of her life. I just that I've found him. For me, a successful life is a shared life. Even though I know that some people make other choices. P.M.: Is it because you've found someone that you no longer use make-up? V.P.: I don't always use it. Tonight, I sing, and I will use make-up. But in everyday life, it's nice to rub my eyes and not worry about my eyeliner, to feel my skin breathing. Previously, I had a ton of things, starting with my body, that I had to accept. Today, my man likes me how I am. So, I don't have to make an effort for anybody else. Apart from the public or the lens of cameras. That's far from disagreeable. Me, I'm a real girl: I like nice dresses, 30's fringes, little beaded or embroidered things. P.M.: Your mother and father are very close, they've given you a strong parental model. Do you feel you have to be as good as they are? V.P.: No, because everyone has a different life according to their circumstance, situations. The majority of my parents' friends are separated or divorced. My mother always told me: "You think it was easier for us?" To live 30 years with someone, it's not easy. My parents underwent as many trials as their friends. They just succeeded in surmounting them. The others were maybe more impatient. P.M.: And you, you're patient? V.P.: More than he is. I was only impulsive, disorganized. Nowadays, when I go on a trip, I shouldn't think of only my packing, but also all that Lily-Rose needs. I became a model of organization, which makes my mother howl with laughter, because I was never that. On the same note, I know that if my beloved is impulsive and impatient, it's my job to moderate. I don't mean that I put it all on my shoulders. We each have our turn. You know, ok, sometimes, you want to howl and break plates. Oh well, you should: the plate should be broken. There comes a moment when one of two people must yield, but not always the same person. To tell you the truth, he's someone that just needs a spark to explode. But on the other hand, he is extremely calm. He moderates. In any case, he can control his inner demon. In these moments, he's calmer than me. P.M.: This balance is all the more surprising because each one of you on your own projected a provocative, rebellious image. V.P.: I never thought of myself as a rebel. The term even makes me smile. If I caused myself to have that image, it wasn't a conscious effort. Him, the same thing. When you saw him acting like an animal, destroying certain places, there was always a reason. There again, I won't permit myself to go into details. It's his story, and the majority of those things happened before we lived together. P.M.: Are you one of those people who think that if you don't rebel at 20 years old, you're a lost case for the rest of your life? V.P.: Yes. With age, you calm yourself. You don't have to revolt anymore, you don't have to reject anymore, you compose yourself. At least, that's something we won't have to teach Lily-Rose. (Laugh.) I believe she's already got it. P.M.: Do you share with him the same revolts?
P.M.: "Bliss" is an intimate album but never indecent. Are you scared?
V.P.: No, because I haven't opened any doors: this album speaks about universal subjects where anyone can recognize themselves. I seldom speak about my private life. I did with you. I don't want my silence to be mal-interpreted. For someone to think it disguises something ugly. What I have is very beautiful. Anyway, I can't resist the pleasure of speaking about us. When you're in love, when you're very happy, you want to shout it from all the rooftops.
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