Sheila was cheated out of a large part of her fortune. The 80-year-old singer could have earned more money if she had not been defrauded by a man who took advantage of her naivety to enrich himself personally, as she confided to “Le Monde”…
At the beginning of the 1960s, in the midst of the yé-yé explosion, France discovered a young woman full of talent: Sheila. Behind the rise of the young singer, a man: Claude Carrère. A fairy tale at first glance… But that was without taking into account the venality of this showman, now deceased.
Sheila, scammed by her producer: “I didn’t touch anything”
“We were nothing, neither one nor the other – I was in the markets, he was a failed singer – but from our collaboration an empire was born (…) He had a flair, an innate sense of marketing, a voracious appetite for money, while I only thought about living my dream as an artist, disciplined and a good little soldier”Sheila recently recalled in the columns of World. And to the one who, in the city, is Annie Chancel to detail: “He became my producer (…) and took everything in hand, giving me such a pitiful percentage of record sales that he was finally forced to pay me, otherwise I received nothing”.
However, the interpreter of Spacer did not immediately doubt the sincerity of his mentor. It was only in 1996 that this daughter of traders sued the famous Claude Carrère, who had robbed her of a huge sum of money. Result: the industrial tribunal ordered his company to pay 4.3 million francs to the singer.
Sheila got “500 franchise stores” in his name: “He made as much money as possible”
A very meager compensation compared to the sums pocketed by Sheila’s ex-manager. “The further away you go, the more valuable success is. Mine is only due to elbow grease and the righteousness instilled by my parents. So I have no bitterness, at 80 years old, even if I took a beating. No feeling of revenge. Just an immense gratitude. And the pride of not having given myself any limits”chanted the 80-year-old artist… who had stores in his name!
Indeed, the one who no longer wanted to see her parents “get up at 4 o’clock” accepted the idea of opening several Sheila boutiques, “intended to sell Sheila designer clothes”. “I drew sketches of dresses, skirts, jackets with young designers; then I posed with the outfits, which were distributed everywhere. As it worked well, we opened stores which I thought I would put my parents at the head of.”she said.
But the producer quickly put in his two cents: “Carrère protested. He placed his own people, sidelining my father (…) My parents therefore became, like me, his employees while the chain expanded to include 500 franchised stores”. An adventure that ended relatively badly: “One day, Carrère abruptly announced the bankruptcy of the company and the closure of all the stores. At the same time, he managed to get me to make a series of records, from which he made as much money as possible, while preventing me from returning to the stage, because that would have given me independence”.
