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Two years after his firstborn son, Noah, was diagnosed with liver cancer, Michael Bublé opens up about facing life – and love – with a new-found confidence.
Watch Michael perform in Sydney for 7’s Sunrise in the video below.
Christmas is just weeks away, and Michael Bublé can’t contain his excitement.
“I can smell it in the air,” announces the 44-year- old singer, his buttery voice raising an octave.
“If you think I like Christmas, then double that by a zillion.” Listing off his holiday checklist –the Elf on the Shelf is showing up “very soon” at home, his favourite tune “Please Come Home for Christmas” by pal Jann Arden is already in rotation, and “too much food and booze” is set to be delivered – Bublé sounds more like one of his kids giddily awaiting Santa than a globetrotting, Grammy-winning father-of-three.
But given the roller-coaster of highs and lows his family has been on recently, this capacity for joy has served him well.
“My favourite thing about myself is the way I see life,” says the entertainer. “I have this child-like wonderment. Now, even more, I see things through the eyes of my kids.”
That upbeat personality has been put to the hardest of tests.
Two years ago, just three minutes before he was set to take the stage in London, Bublé received a shocking text from his wife, Argentine actress Luisana Lopilato, that tore his world apart: their then 3-year- old son Noah had been diagnosed with liver cancer.
The Vancouver-based couple – who are also parents to son Elias, 2, and daughter Vida, 4 months – uprooted their lives that same month and moved to California, where they stayed by Noah’s bedside at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles as he underwent gruelling treatments and chemotherapy over the next seven months.
Sitting down with WHO 18 months after Noah’s doctors cleared him of cancer, the relief Bublé still feels is palpable: “Our prayers were answered. Life is good,” he says, though his signature sparkle fades for a moment when he reflects on the lifelong impact his son’s illness has had on him.
“Listen, I am different,” he says.
“You don’t go through big, dramatic things like I’ve gone through or my wife has gone through without it having an effect on you.”
With Noah’s cancer in remission, Bublé recently released his 10th studio album, called Love but officially titled with just the heart emoji, a project he says almost didn’t happen after his son’s diagnosis.
“I’m spending my time doing things I love, and with people I love, for people I love.”
For Michael Buble’s full exclusive interview with WHO, be sure to pick up the new issue of the magazine, out now.
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