An Unexpected Return to Paris
An unexpected return but one he already savors! In recent days, dancer and choreographer Benjamin Millepied, a former star dancer of the American Ballet and director of the Paris Opera, announced that after seven years in Los Angeles, he had returned to Paris for new projects. An surprising decision but taken in consultation with his wife, Natalie Portman, as he explains in the latest issue of Paris Match. And in particular for their two children, Aleph and Amalia, who were beginning to suffer from the American lifestyle. “By its geography, Los Angeles isolates people. […] When the children grow up, they can’t have their independence because they are very dependent on the car. For my 11 year old son, it was starting to be hard. All this gave me the blues and with my wife, we said ‘let’s go home’. This return is a real family project,” he explained.
A Change of Scenery for the Family
And the small family has rather suffered from different dramas experienced in recent months, especially due to firearms: “First there was a shootout in the parking lot of my company that lasted for hours […]. It was very violent. In the two months that followed, we experienced a false alarm at my daughter’s school and there was a murder in the parking lot of my son’s school.” Three events that made him aware that life in the United States was perhaps no longer for him, even though he denies it, this departure “is not a flight”. Rather a way to regain the “intellectual richness” of Paris, where you “walk or take the metro” and where you find “committed people who are passionate about cultural, ecological or social issues” that he was missing.
Exploring Paris with His Children
Tired of being “Madame’s husband” permanently, the dancer who recently called on Dimitri Rassam to produce his new film (Carmen, which will be released on June 14) is delighted with his return and is introducing his children to life in the capital. Indeed, if their little Aleph, born in 2011, knew Paris between his two and a half and five years old, his little sister Amalia was born in 2017, the year following their return to Los Angeles. Two children who will also be able to explore their passions: if the teenager is “more into football” according to his father, the little girl, on the other hand, “is already starting to choreograph”. And we look forward to her following in his footsteps!
