A persistent rumour in the french musical industry mentioned a kind of silent war that started on the day when Morrissey gave his last interview to Les Inrockuptibles.

For the story, les Inrockuptibles was founded by old Smiths fans back in the 80's and the magazine was always very supportive towards Morrissey, even during the early 90's when the singles such as November or Interesting Drug were poorly received by the critics. Even after the Union Jack affair and unlike the NME, they kept on supporting him, giving him regular front page coverage. Every single interview he gave to that magazine was pretty credible, heartfelt and emotional with a lot of personal questions about his feelings, past and traumas. I think there was a real mutual trust.

So that's what I've been repeated today when asking my friend who still works in the industry. During that last interview (for the release of Southpaw, not Maladjusted which -I think but I'm not quite sure- is the only Moz album release that hasn't got a Inrockuptibles interview), there's a long blank that could even be felt on the paper. It was a question that lead to "Used to be a Sweet Boy" on V&I, and given the lyrics of that song, you can easily imagine what kind of embarassing question was asked. Morrissey reportedly asked the interviewer to immediatly stop taping. He then walked out of the room and came back a few minutes later only to quickly finish the interview and never spoke to the magazine again.

Once again, it's only a rumour that could've been made up by the magazines or whatever intern at EMI. But, on the other hand, any French fan had noticed that he used to appreciate touring and coming in France a lot before that period and that he suddenly stopped getting any kind of specific coverage by Les Inrockuptibles afterwards.

If anyone of you has more information about that affair ?