2023-04-21 19:00:00
par charlotte vanbever
Fashion to get away from it all, haute couture to dream of a better tomorrow. It is between the creations of the Natan house that Zoé, 24, tells of her fight once morest cancer in Mentissa. A moving encounter between a radiant young woman and the Belgian artist, which we attended.
They had never spoken to each other. For their first meeting, Edouard Vermeulen opened the doors of his house Natan to them, in Brussels. The setting is almost idyllic, it “conveys a bit of a dream”, puts stars in their eyes while the story of Zoé, who was 24 years old with stage 4 cancer, would fill them with tears. But far from her the idea of feeling sorry for her fate. “Zoé is solar,” Mentissa tells us.
Moreover, the Belgian artist and the young woman from Estampuis are a little alike. “I was told that Mentissa was spontaneous and natural, that I was going to find myself a little in it. It’s true ! “, smiles Zoé whose testimony, delivered on the occasion of Télévie, upsets by its force.
Moreover, confides the Belgian artist, “I wondered how I was going to listen to his story without being too moved. I’m a very empathetic person and I didn’t want to cry while listening to it. But I was impressed by Zoé’s perspective. People like us, who have an ‘easier’ life than Zoe’s because they don’t have to deal with illness, tend to get upset regarding little things, to lament their fate. Zoé, I find her inspiring. I believe in destiny… And if we met today, maybe it was important for her, for me. His story is something I will carry with me for the rest of my life.”
For Zoé, talking regarding her illness, demonstrating her fighting spirit, is obvious. It is even necessary. “It’s important to talk regarding the disease to raise awareness, to show that cancer does not always rhyme with death”. Still, the 24-year-old thought the ordeal behind her following treatment for her first kidney cancer. “The first time they told me I had kidney cancer, I didn’t cry. On the way out, I told mum I knew because I had been saying to myself for years: ‘one day this is going to happen to me’. I don’t know why… But the second time, I didn’t suspect it at all”. It is then the blow of the club. Zoe felt good though. “I didn’t understand. I wondered what I had done to deserve this. Suddenly, your world collapses, you are afraid. But followingwards, I stopped being afraid because fear would be my greatest weakness in the face of cancer”. Today, in full immunotherapy treatment, Zoé is fine, she smiles. And it is certainly not his scars that will make him say the opposite: “I had a kidney removed, and a tumor also 9cm and the scar goes through my entire belly. But I never said ‘I’m going to wear a one-piece swimsuit rather than a bikini’! When I look in the mirror, I see my scar, but I’m not embarrassed. It would have hurt me more to lose my hair.
Zoé is flirtatious, loves fashion (hence her presence in the Natan house) and… football too. “Fashion in general allows me to decompress, to think regarding something else,” she says. The music too, which “heals the wounds a little”, says Mentissa. “If I hadn’t done that job, I would have committed myself to people. It’s part of my personality, I always want to help. When I started to live from my music, I told myself that my notoriety, I might use it to do things. We’re not going to lie to each other: it doesn’t have the same impact when you have 800 or 80,000 subscribers on the networks. I can talk regarding certain things, help people on my level. For me, in life, you receive, you give, it’s a natural cycle. I receive, I’m lucky, I live from my music without being rich, but I have my boyfriend, I’m in Paris, there, I’m in good health: I have to give now! There is no question regarding it, my mission on earth is this: to live for myself and for others. It makes no sense what I do if, in the end, it hasn’t helped people, ”concludes Mentissa. And Zoé’s testimony will also certainly help many people.
La grande soirée de clotûre du Télévie
This Saturday at 7:45 p.m. on RTL-TVI
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