Michael Bublé: ‘I live with no fear now. I’ve been to hell’
AHEAD of his return to Australia, Michael Bublé opens up exclusively to Stellar about his young son’s devastating cancer diagnosis and why he is now filled with hope.
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MINUTES before fronting his first press conference in nearly two years, Michael Bublé fell into a familiar trap. The superstar Canadian singer, 42, grew nervous and emotional as he prepared to speak to the media a day before the “comeback” show he would play to 70,000 fans at Dublin’s Croke Park last month.
“I looked at my hair a bunch of times,” Bublé tells Stellar, sitting backstage ahead of the show. “I finally stopped and said, ‘Please god, don’t do this anymore. Let your stupid insecurity go. Just be kind and real and graceful. Appreciate all that you have. And stop looking at your stupid f*cking hair, Mike.’”
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“I’ve got a very clear perspective now, one that I didn’t have before,” he says. “Things got very clear for me, very quickly. I live with no fear now. I’ve been to hell.”
Bublé’s journey down the highway to hell started on October 31, 2016, when he and his wife, Argentinian actor Luisana Lopilato, rushed their three-year-old son Noah to a Los Angeles hospital. Less than two weeks prior, Bublé had released his seventh studio album Nobody But Me. He’d taken creative control on the album but fought with his record label, who also wanted him to make his annual Christmas TV special. A notorious self-Googler, he was aware that people were waiting for it, too — a yearly meme that referenced Bublé coming out of his “cave” for Christmas was once again making the rounds.
“I’m sitting in the hospital thinking, ‘You cared about that? What is wrong with you?’ I let these arseholes on the internet and critics bother me.” Professionally, Bublé was at the crest of a career that had seen him sell 75 million albums. Personally, he was questioning himself for the first time — and facing the very real prospect that his toddler son could succumb to a devastating disease.
It had been a steady rise for the singer born and raised just outside of Vancouver. His self-titled 2003 debut cast Bublé as a modern-day Sinatra, performing classics as well as revisiting songs by George Michael and Van Morrison in the style of the Rat Pack. Audiences ate it up.
He subsequently proved he could write his own hits — 2009’s “Haven’t Met You Yet”, which he wrote for Lopilato, has earned a permanent berth on easy-listening stations the world over — and 2011’s Christmas has become one of the most popular holiday albums of all time.
Then came Nobody But Me. A few months before its release, Bublé had again become a father, to another son named Elias.
“I had my sh*t together,” he says. But on the other hand... “I was burnt out. I just wasn’t enjoying myself as much, through the fault of no-one but myself. And this was before Noah’s diagnosis. There was a certain kind of desperation coming from an insecure place, wondering how long all of this could last.”
Looking back on his time promoting the album, Bublé reflects, “I thought I was OK. I tried to be strong. I don’t want my children to see weakness and fear as they watch their father on YouTube years from now.”
It was hard for him to reconcile the cheeky, open-hearted star who audiences flocked to see with the frustrated person he was becoming offstage. “I really like people. I love entertaining. I love that genuine sense of connection I get — that when you write a song you can change somebody’s life; whether you know it or not, you can save someone’s life.
“But the further I went along, the less of those things I was enjoying. They started to become clouded by the ego: Will this album be successful or a failure? Will the critics like it? Is this arena full? Are the tickets selling? Am I really a big star? How come I wasn’t invited to this event? Geez, I’m only nominated for this many awards? All of these things drag you down.”
Noah’s diagnosis stopped all of this in its tracks. Promotion and tour dates were cancelled. Bublé didn’t care. He’d effectively decided his career was done.
“I truly thought I would never go back. I was done. It just seemed completely unimportant compared to what was going on with Noah. I had talked about perspective a lot in the past — I thought I had pretty good perspective; I think I’ve always been a pretty nice guy. I probably made the same mistakes anybody else had. But, man, suddenly there was great clarity.”
Bublé’s sisters, along with other members of his and Lopilato’s families, rallied. “They took their kids out of school and moved in with us. My wife’s family, they left their jobs. Some days that’s what got us out of bed, knowing there were people praying for us. When you go through hell, you find out about yourself. You find out who people around you really are. My manager and record label never once called to ask what I would do; the only messages I ever got were ‘We love you’ and ‘We’re praying for you.’ It gave me this great sense of peace, knowing the world is a beautiful place and it just needs more love and happiness and joy.
“People in Argentina put up signs wishing us well at football games. Once I’d had a horrible, rotten, scary day. The phone rang and it was Elton John, out of the blue. I don’t know Elton John. He just told me he loved me and he was thinking about Noah and he and his husband were praying for us. These little things help so much. They build a little step for you and somehow you just trudge along.”
Bublé is determined to keep the graphic details of Noah’s battle private, and he pauses several times during his chat with Stellar to compose himself. “One of my really close friends said to me, ‘Mike, can I know the story?’ Because I don’t talk about it — it hurts too much. I started saying, ‘Man, we’ve been through hell...’ and by the time I finished the story, I realised that [in contrast] hell seems like a really nice place to vacation.
“I know I’m public, I know people want details. But he’s my boy — he doesn’t need to relive this over and over again. I tell him all the time, ‘You know Spider-Man and Superman and Batman?’ and he says, ‘Yes, Poppy,’ and I say, ‘They are all fake superheroes. I know that you like ’em, but they’re fake... they’re drawings.’ I say to him, ‘You’re a real superhero, Noah.’”
A few weeks ago, on July 25, Bublé and Lopilato welcomed Vida Amber Betty Bublé, their first daughter. She joined two-year-old Elias and Noah, now almost five and in remission.
Recalling the time Noah’s prognosis started to improve, Bublé marvels, “Food never tasted so good, music never sounded so good, my relationship with my family, my faith... all of it. My wife and I, we got happy, we fell in love again. We saw the very worst and also the best of each other. I don’t know that [having another child] was purposeful, there was just so much happiness and this incredible sense of relief. I know my wife wanted to have a girl. That was huge for her. After the doctor told us and I said, ‘Lu, it’s a girl!’, she was shrieking. We want a big family — I don’t think we’re even going to stop there.”
It wasn’t just babies Bublé got back to making when Noah’s health was on the mend. (“It’s cancer,” he points out, “so you have to do check-ups, but we’re so grateful and positive.”)
Amid a surge of renewed creative energy, he returned to music, first writing a song about his sons. “I haven’t seen a therapist. I made a record. My therapy was that record. I just didn’t want to talk about it. I felt better praying and making a record, being at that altar.”
The new album, due later this year, reunites the singer with David Foster, the producer behind the albums that launched his career. “It’s the greatest record I’ve ever made,” he enthuses. “Forget every other artist who’s said that! You will know. You’ll hear it. The clarity I discovered [after Noah’s diagnosis] allowed me to find the joy I had at the start of my career — the kid who couldn’t believe he was getting to do this. That joy is back.”
With Noah in recovery and a new album in the can, the next step is a return to live performance. After outdoor events in Dublin and London, Bublé will play a one-off Australian show to farewell Sydney’s Allianz Stadium in October.
“I see my career differently now — as this wonderful bonus on top of a life that is already fulfilled. It sounds strange, but not caring really helps. I care that people get value for money from the tickets they pay for; I’ll break my arse out there and give everything I have. But a massive weight comes off when you know you’re not going to read the reviews. I refuse to put my name into Google; it makes life a lot happier.
“It’s going to be something I need to remind myself. I told my wife, ‘Hey kid, keep me grounded. If you see me losing my way, remind me what’s important.’ Family comes first. In the scheme of everything, the health of my children is number one. In the future, we’ll have decisions to make as far as the best way to tour as a family.”
When Bublé told Lopilato about the upcoming jaunt to Australia, she quickly replied, “We’re all coming.” It was just a quick visit, he explained, and it would take a long time to get here. They’d also have three small children in tow. “She said, ‘Deal with it!’” he recalls with a laugh. “I love her.”
Michael Bublé and special guests play Allianz Stadium on Friday, October 5; book at ticketek.com.au.
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Originally published as Michael Bublé: ‘I live with no fear now. I’ve been to hell’