After four years in secret, the singer Éric Lapointe, who received a conditional discharge in 2020 over allegations of assault on a woman made against him, agreed to face the journalist Sophie Durocher and return to the events that led to his arrest .
In this interview, the columnist and host focuses on the now 54-year-old Quebec rocker's downfall, his setbacks with alcohol and his other addictions, his arrest a few hours after his 50th birthday celebrations, the legal process that followed and his rehabilitation .
We learn that the Anything singer, the first French-speaking male artist from Quebec to sell more than a million albums, was hospitalized for almost a month in 2009 after attempting to wean himself on his own, and that he had developed a predilection for drunkenness as a preliminary stage -teenager.
Éric Lapointe granted an interview to Sophie Durocher that will air on TVA on Sunday, January 14, 2024. Photo provided by TVA
“I was really interested in knowing; “If someone has been at the top until now, if the fall is so dizzying, how we work on ourselves, how we change, how we develop,” the Journal columnist brought up in an interview with the QMI agency.
The QUB presenter also explained that it was her desire to understand how an event of this magnitude could impact her self-reflection that guided her throughout her interview with the rocker.
- Listen to the interview Sophie Durocher gave to Mario Dumont where she talks about her exclusive interview with Éric Lapointe QUB :
“The fact that he went through the legal process and pleaded guilty made me feel good from a moral and ethical perspective. . And above all, that we could talk about what this legal process is all about,” she added.
“There was no trial, he didn't have to let the victim relive it and he took responsibility for the facts, so from then on I had no problem doing an interview with him,” she said, while emphasizing that it was not an interview about impressions, but based on the facts, just the facts, and that she kept her opinions for her columns.
Do useful work
According to the moderator, certain passages from her interview with Éric Lapointe could also be helpful. “He doesn’t hide behind the alcohol excuse. At one point in the interview he says: “I was the one who did it, it wasn’t the alcohol”, he doesn’t shy away from it and I think that’s important,” she emphasized.
Photo provided by TVA
“I didn't think he would agree to an investigation into his addiction to this extent, especially considering that he started drinking alcohol at a very early age, he says he was around 12 to 13 years old, I admit, that's pretty fascinating. But I think that someone who looks at this addiction this way and speaks about it so openly and clearly can do useful work in our society,” believes Ms. Durocher.
Recall that in October 2020, Éric Lapointe pleaded guilty to assaulting a woman. At the end of his conditional release, he was required to undergo therapy, which only ends when the therapist decides to respect the good agreement and donate $3,000 to a charity.
The program “Éric Lapointe, face à ses demons” will be shown on TVA this Sunday at 8:30 p.m., shortly after La Voix.
Sophie Durocher will be on the next season of Get Me Out of Here! It can also be seen Monday to Thursday at 3 p.m. on QUB, the TVA Group's new specialty channel.