Monday evening, TF1 broadcast a TV film recounting part of the life of singer and actor Filip Nikolic, leader of the group 2Be3 who died sixteen years ago.
On this occasion, “Paris Match” published a long article revealing her eight-year romantic relationship with Arnaud, formerly presented as her “roommate”.
“I met Filip in 1999, in the United States. I worked for Barclays and the bank wanted to make a bank card for young people. We said to ourselves: why not sponsor this card with the 2Be3s which were exploding? So I met the members of the group in Miami. Quickly, there was a match between Filip and me,” Arnaud tells our colleagues.
If this relationship – known by Filip Nikolic’s close friends and family but kept secret – began as a platonic relationship, everything changed during a trip to New York, a year after their meeting: “Later, when I asked him why he had brought me there, he told me: ‘I could never have done it in France’.”
Filip and his demons
Back in France, Arnaud and Filip moved together into an apartment on rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, in Paris. This is where Arnaud discovers Filip prey to his demons: “Many people have put his discomfort, his need to drink or take drugs on subjects linked to the loss of success, but it was much deeper than that. He had started drinking and smoking long before his career declined,” Arnaud tells our colleagues.
For a year, when Filip becomes a father, their story stops. Then she continues. But the singer is getting worse and worse, victim of his torments. It was then Nikolic’s family who called Arnaud for help, thinking that he was the only one who could get the 2Be3 leader out of trouble. The latter announces his separation from Valérie Bourdin, the mother of his child, and moves in again with Arnaud. The two men will never leave each other again.
“As if I were saying that rain comes out of the ground”
“Reveal our history? He always told me: Arnaud, I can’t say it. I am Serbian. Saying that we are together is like saying that rain comes out of the ground,” explains Filip Nikolic’s companion who was also presented as his real estate advisor.
Arnaud will watch over his love, even during the filming of the series “Navarro”, where everyone knew him. “Filip’s daughter called me Uncle Bibi. We went to the snow together, I taught her to ski, I bought her raspberry tarts, I took her to school, to her dance classes…” he explains.
Uncle Bibi
Why reveal this long hidden love story to the public today? Arnaud assures that he is not trying to get anything out of it. “I’m doing it for Filip. I was there to support him during these years and I refuse to overshadow his desire to heal and the strength he showed. Our story lasted eight years and I was able to see his strength, his sensitivity and his commitment in everything he did.”
And to conclude: “He was truly someone unique, a passionate, generous and deeply human being.”
