The widow of singer Herbert Léonard has opened up with sincerity about her late husband’s infidelities. How has their marriage held up?
Last March, singer Herbert Léonard died at the age of 80, following lung cancer. He leaves behind his daughter, his wife and a final album, entitled I would like to tell you about myself whose promotion is ensured by his widow, Cléo Léonard. It was during an interview given to Ciné Télé Revue that she spoke, with frankness, about her husband’s infidelities.
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Fifty-eight years old. So many years during which the singer of the hit For pleasure was in a relationship with Cléo Léonard. During this long life together, the lovebirds went through ups and downs, as Cléo Léonard recounted. “You shouldn’t believe that a singer is an angel. I knew this job and its temptations, the women who came to see him with the idea of keeping him all night. You have to know how to accept things when you start your life with someone like that” she explained, referring to her late husband’s infidelities.
The man who is credited with several liaisons with groupies was able to count on his discreet wife who was deeply attached to the stability of their home. Cléo Léonard, who remained in the background for a long time, confided that she turned a blind eye to certain infidelities, out of love but also out of an instinct for family protection. “For a long time, I pretended to protect my daughter“, she revealed. Then added: “Later, other reasons kept us together.“
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Marriage is part of one of the reasons that allowed the couple to stay together despite the turmoil. A late union, but symbolic. “In the end, it wasn’t so bad. We even got married after thirty-seven years together” she said. This commitment, which came late, was made on a whim.
“One day he said to me: ‘What if we got married?’ I replied: ‘If you want’“, she remembered. Leaving space for Herbert Léonard also seems to have been one of the secrets of the longevity of their couple. “Like many, he thought first of himself, then of his daughter, then of me. I let him live his career, I had my life on the side” she confided.
A career guided by his passion for music, which is fully reflected in his latest album. A project that should not be seen as a posthumous work, as Cléo Léonard clarified: “He had no particular reason to fear that he would not have time to finish it and that he would not release it during his lifetime.“.
