Patrick Bruel

He met Amanda Sthers in Saint-Tropez in 2001 and the two went into a live-in relationship. The couple had their first baby, Oscar, in 2003. The two married in 2004 at the town hall of 4th arrondissement, Paris, and had their second child, Leon, in 2005. The couple divorced in 2007

He was spotted with model and TV presenter, Celine Bosquet, in 2009. However, the couple separated in 2012.

Patrick Bruel was born as Patrick Maurice Benguigui on May 14, 1959, in Tlemcen, French Algeria, to teacher parents Pierre Benguigui and Augusta Kammoun.

In 1960, his parents separated and after Algeria’s independence in 1962, he moved to France with his mother and settled in the Argenteuil suburb of Paris.

He was captivated by music after listening to Brel, Brassens and Gainsbourg classics at the age of five and looked up to rock guitarists Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton as his heroes.

As a teenager, he desired to be a professional footballer, but shifted his interest to singing after seeing Michel Sardou’s performance in 1975.

In 1978, he secured his baccalaureat and enrolled in the university, where he spent his summer holidays at the ‘Club Mediterranee’ working as a singer-guitarist.

He started his acting career in 1978 with debutant director Alexandre Arcady’s ‘Le Coup de Sirocco’ after responding to a newspaper advert.

He spent the entire 1979 in New York trying his luck in acting and music, where he got familiar with the New York music scene and met Gerard Presgurvic, who later became his main songwriter.

A year later in 1980, he returned to Paris to complete his studies at the Faculty of Commerce. Here, he was flooded with acting offers in theatre, television, and films.

He recorded his first single ‘Vide’ in 1982 which went unnoticed. However, his second effort ‘Marre de cette nana-la’, released in 1984, topped the music charts and made him a star overnight.

In 1982, he starred in his second film ‘Le Batard’, directed by Bertrand van Effentere. Later, he bonded with Arcady in three more movies, namely, ‘Grand Carnival’ (1983), ‘The Sacred Union’ (1989), and ‘K’ (1997).

His second studio album ‘Alors Regarde’, released in 1989, proved to be a turning point in his career, making him an instant superstar in Europe and Canada with over three million copies sold.

In 1990, he started a sold-out tour, ‘Bruelmania’, delivering over 130 live performances across France and other countries, with the audience comprising mainly teenage girls.

His double studio album ‘Entre Deux’, featuring 23 selective songs with various guest singers, like Jean-Louis Aubert, Renaud, Jean-Jacques Goldman, Charles Aznavour, and Danielle Darrieux, was out in 2002 and sold two million copies.