Gregory Charles is “surprised” by the reaction of people who denounced the lack of decency of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who sang with her in a London hotel on the eve of Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral.
• Also read: Trudeau ruined one of the most beautiful songs in human history
• Also read: Justin Trudeau sings with Gregory Charles
Gregory Charles didn’t need to be asked when he was invited to play the piano after returning from a show he’d just attended on Saturday night, he who was part of the Canadian delegation to the Queen’s funeral.
Trudeau celebrates his accession as Queen of Canada by drunkenly singing to an audience at his predecessor’s funeral. Nobel. pic.twitter.com/kpXTPcQ71f
— Keean Bexte 🇬🇧 (@TheRealKeean) September 19, 2022
Justin Trudeau approached the piano to press the note on the Queen’s track “Bohemian Rhapsody.” The Liberal leader wore a T-shirt and sang to crowds gathered at the hotel, as shown in a video that has gone viral.
Walking the set of “Salut Bonjour” on Tuesday morning, just hours after returning to Montreal, Gregory Charles said he found the reaction of certain media outlets and commentators “completely disproportionate,” saying that they “[jugé] without knowing the context.
“I recognize people [le droit] to have the opinion they want, but I’m amazed because I know what kind of schedule they had. You work, work and work and at the end of the evening you spend some time with your closest guard or your team, I don’t find it irregular,” Gregory Charles said in an interview with Gino Chouinard.
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“I also don’t find it unusual, perhaps because my father is from the West Indies, to have a moment of joy around a funeral, a moment where we share, a moment where we make music I see that the whole world reacts differently.”
Gregory Charles understands “from this reaction” why few people enter politics.
According to him, “Justin Trudeau sings well”. “I think if he wasn’t prime minister he would bother to learn the piano or the guitar, I think he’s interested.”
“He could have chosen an easier song to sing. The challenge was still quite big,” said New Democratic Party MP Alexandre Boulerice.
Through his connections to King Charles III, who has just succeeded his mother to the throne of the United Kingdom, their meeting dates back to around 25 years ago, at the time he had attended a tour where Gregory was entertaining Prince Charles on various evenings .
“I’m not going to make you think I’m a sidekick to King Charles III, but it worked, it clicked. We had a lot of fun and he made all sorts of jokes. Someone had got it wrong about me, mistaking me for someone else and making him laugh, tremendously. He went on stage to say, “I know it’s hard to tell us apart, but he’s Gregory Charles and I’m Prince Charles.” That kind of humor there. So we had a lot of fun there and every time he came back he managed to contact Canadian government officials to ask me to go. Every time he came back, I was there. He met my daughter.
In order to attend Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral, Gregory Charles had to postpone a show at Sainte-Marie in Beauce.
Notably, he spent the ceremony alongside Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, a famous singer representing New Zealand.
“We sang side by side throughout the service, which I think was the picture of what the Queen represents to the populace, something sober, solemn. The people were nice, the recorder was huge, you had to move around for a good hour, let’s say something happened yesterday. But it was a nice “feeling” to be there.”