Bernard Arnault and his wife, Hélène Mercier-Arnault, have been experiencing true love since 1991. However, before becoming one of the most powerful couples in France, both experienced a fairly chaotic first meeting. In Le Figaro, the pianist confided in this first impression… far from the fairy tale.
Hélène Mercier-Arnault is more of the discreet type. Especially when it comes to talking about her husband, the president of the LVMH group and the seventh richest person in the world according to ForbesBernard Arnault. Indeed, there is no question for this renowned pianist and concert performer of being reduced to the status of “wife of” the 76-year-old businessman.
Hélène-Mercier Arnault does not want to be a “woman of”: “It invades everything…”
Moreover, on stage, she calls herself Hélène Mercier. Because, even if she feels entirely fulfilled in her profession, the 66-year-old pianist admits it: the side “wife of“always wins. “You have to impose discipline on yourself to be able to separate things and be very careful: because being Bernard Arnault’s wife invades everything, transforms the way you look”she also expressed in the columns of Figaro. And to add: “Whatever the career and merits, there will always be someone who says: ‘Of course, it’s thanks to her husband'”.
However, this daughter of a lawyer and a stay-at-home mother who introduced her to the piano, readily recounted her meeting with her business manager husband. It was while going to a dinner with friends that she crossed paths with the businessman.at the antipodes of the worlds she encountered at the time“according to the Figaro. But love at first sight was not immediate, far from it!
Bernard Arnault “cold and distant?” : “I discovered another man…”
“When I met him, I actually found Bernard cold and distant. I questioned Brigitte Engerer, who had already met him during a piano competition jury. She replied: ‘He’s stuck'”, she remembered. Her gaze fell on him when he began to play Chopin’s Etude Révolutionnaire on the piano… and his first impression quickly changed: “When I heard him play the piano, I discovered another man: someone who had completely exposed himself, who had stage fright, who was trembling, and who still wanted to go all the way. Someone extremely sensitive”.
Married since 1991 with a “true man” Who “always shows what he is”the pianist had three children – Alexandre, Frédéric and Jean -, with the one who already had two children, born from his first union with Anne Dewavrin. All three are musicians, like their mother, and all work in their father’s band. A true symbiosis!
