A guest of Bernard Montiel on RFM, Amel Bent spoke with rare sincerity about her childhood. The singer, now fulfilled in her life as a woman and mother, confided that she never found the father figure she had so hoped for.
"I especially hoped that I would have a father."
At 40, Amel Bent is an accomplished artist, but also a woman marked by a painful past. In the show An hour with… broadcast this Sunday, October 19 on RFM, the performer of The Philosophy returned to a personal wound: that of an absent father, and of a stepfather who did not know how to love her as she would have liked.
"I hardly grew up with my father at all, so he didn't replace anyone; he took a place that was vacant. So, I put a lot of hope in him, as a little girl of four. I called him dad outright," says the singer. But this bond she dreamed of building never saw the light of day. "I mostly hoped that I would have a father. And in fact, he didn't love me the way I would have wanted. He didn't love me the way he loved his natural children," she confides, her voice filled with emotion.
A difference in treatment that Amel Bent has long experienced as an injustice. "I'm a child, so I didn't choose for people to get together and separate. But it's true that I've carried this grief all my life, even though it's absolutely nothing to do with me," she added with disarming lucidity.
"Today all is forgiven"
While childhood wounds never truly disappear, Amel Bent has learned to tame them. Today, she says she has found peace thanks to her own family: "Today, everything is forgiven. We move on, that's life."
Married to Patrick Antonelli since 2015, the singer is the mother of three children, Sofia, Hana, and Zayn, and strives to give them the home she never had. "I put a lot of energy into making my family life work. For me, that's the secret to my happiness," she says proudly.
Amel Bent, who grew up in the 4000 housing project in La Courneuve, has transformed pain into strength. Today, she is a renowned artist, but also a peaceful woman, aware that the family we build can heal the shortcomings of the one we never had.
