A powerful and moving testimony. On February 14, 2021, Hélène de Fougerolles was in the spotlight in Sept à Huit which dedicated the “portrait of the week” to her. Questioned by the journalist Audrey Crespo-Mara, the famous actress poured out with emotion on her private life by evoking her only daughter Shanna. Born in 2003, the young teenager has suffered from autism since birth.
A difficult daily struggle for Hélène de Fougerolles, who felt guilty for many years. “15 years ago, there is no possible diagnosis, because either a child is mentally handicapped, or a child is fine. But, there is no in-between”, confided the forties . “So there, we are starting to be told that there is a big problem but they don’t know what it is”, referring to the specialists she met.
This is why the daughter of Hélène de Fougerolles and producer Éric Hubert was placed in a specialized establishment. “We have no other alternative but to put her in what they call a day hospital. It’s a center, a medical institute for all the particularities that are linked to what they call mental disability. “. A difficult word to hear for the actress who could not contain her tears during the television interview on TF1.
“There are certain words that still don’t come across today. Because my daughter is not mentally handicapped to me or mentally retarded! Those are words that still come back to me today. In the sense that she is different, it’s special and it’s true that it’s something that I can’t take it”, she says before adding. “We’re not talking about the magnificent emotional intelligence, the empathy, the kindness, the kindness, the heart of these people.”
The opportunity also for the actress and author of the book Don’t worry, mom, it’s going to be fine to praise the qualities of her daughter Shanna. “She’s not mentally handicapped, she’s different! She’s really great! Well, they don’t see it, that’s their problem.”
Since 2018, Hélène de Fougerolles was one of the stars of fiction Balthazar with Tomer Sisley on TF1. A series of successful medical surveys which gathered up to 7 million viewers in front of their screens, according to Médiamétrie.
After three years of good and loyal service, the interpreter of captain Hélène Bach has decided to leave the series, as she announced on Instagram in December 2020. “Season 3 of Balthazar is over! It’s also the end of a wonderful adventure for me. I will not participate in season 4 (we could not continue this story of dog / cat indefinitely it would have tired you)”, she confided to her fans before mentioning her ” other stories, other professional and personal adventures” coming in 2021.
The opportunity for the great actress to have a tender thought for the teams who worked with her. “I am infinitely grateful to have had the chance to participate in this series and this success, thank you to TF1, to the producers Stéphane Marsil and Clothilde Jamin, thank you also to the screenwriters and directors with whom I had the chance to work! And of course THANK YOU to my dear partners!! I will miss you”.
If Hélène de Fougerolles is usually discreet about her private life, she has been credited with several known relationships with several personalities. Comfortable with her sexuality, the French actress fully assumed her polyamorous life. “When you say to yourself ‘I love this person for such reasons, and this other person for such other reasons’, you open up the field of possibilities”, she declared on Europe 1 in November 2020.
“It’s not sexual attraction, because it’s not sex that drives me, it’s love and possible exchange with several people. Sharing amorous exchanges with men or women, who can also be open to other people”, admitted the star of the fiction Too young for me on TF1 to our colleagues from Paris Match.
A new philosophy that changed the life of Hélène de Fougerolles, persuading her lovers to adhere to this free relationship. “And I can also live other stories with men and women. There are no women yet but I would love to. There is no more jealousy, history of territory. Love is the answer , I find it completely grotesque to live it with only one person”, assumed the actress open to pansexuality. “I don’t want to put age or gender on the people I’m interested in anymore.”
Today, the actress no longer has the same vision of love. She confides in Galaêtre “moved on to something else”. However, she does not regret her past choices, quite the contrary: “I liked no longer being forced to enter into this imposed pattern that is the two-person couple, no longer being in a mode of possession with its corollary that is jealousy, and living my desire freely”, she tells our colleagues.
