Tapie: why the series was made without the agreement of Bernard Tapie and his family

Tristan Séguéla, co-creator and director, tells us how the businessman reacted when he announced the biopic. And why he considers his family’s reaction today perfectly “normal”.

Even if the series is a success, Bernard Tapie’s family is not happy and makes it known. The biopic Tapie, released this week on Netflix, was made despite their disapproval. Despite the refusal of the businessman himself, who had said “no” during his lifetime to Tristan Séguéla.

The co-creator and director had gone to see him, a few years before his death, to present the project to him. Tapie : “I knew him through my father (Jacques Séguéla). He received me very kindly and I came to tell him that I was going to do a series about him.” tell Tristan Séguéla in the September 2023 issue of Première. “I remember it as if it were yesterday… He was on his sofa, rue des Saints-Pères, with a cushion on his thighs and he replied to me: ‘I’ll stop you right away, ‘is no!’ I remember saying to myself: ‘Be brave, don’t give up and tell him that you didn’t come to ask for his permission.’ So out of courtesy, I told him that I wanted to do it and that I was going to try, whatever the cost. We never spoke about it again…”

Bernard Tapie died in 2021, just after the series was officially ordered by Netflix. Since then, his family has continued to express their disagreement. “I can’t complain about that, it’s kind of the price to pay with this kind of biopic,” responds soberly Tristan Séguéla at Première.

The man behind this fascinating fictional biopic wants to be understanding and even considers it “normal” for the Tapie family to react in this way.

“From the moment we tell the story of someone’s life, it’s normal for loved ones to be apprehensive. They are certainly afraid that we will tarnish the image of their father or their husband. But afterwards, he is a man who has been told so many times. There have been so many books written about him and no one has asked for permission for that. Above all, I believe that we respect his memory. On that note, we are beyond reproach. I really don’t think that the series is incriminating or that it is infamous. I hope that they will see it and that we will manage to get past the stage of principled reactions. Afterwards, when Valérie Lemercier does a fake Céline Dion biopic, the family doesn’t like it either… It’s all quite common.”

Netflix subscribers will be able to form an opinion by watching Tapieonline on Netflix since today.