Just in time for Christmas, singer Michael Bublé is sharing his personal story about love – love of God and love for his family.
On Dec. 16, CBS News interviewed the 43-year-old Canadian whose talent has been likened to “everybody from Tony Bennett to Frank Sinatra.” He already boasts four Grammys and 60 million albums sold – a number that will grow with his new album, “love,” which was released in November.
But, as his fans know, Bublé’s life hasn’t always been easy. At just three years old, Noah, Bublé’s first child with wife and Argentinian model Luisana Lopilato, was diagnosed with liver cancer in 2016. That’s when Bublé put his career on hold.
“There was just, you know, come together as a family, put your head down, pray lots, and just survive,” Bublé said, and later added “…I think that what we went through with our kid and all of that was, honestly, I mean, it was a great cost. You know, love isn’t free.”
But beauty grew from his pain.
“When we went through what we went through with our family and the diagnosis, I was reminded, in one horrible moment, how lucky I am and how grateful I am, and how beautiful life is,” he said. Today, he says, his five-year-old is “great. Thank you, God.”
Bublé described Noah and his younger siblings Elias and baby Vida as the “loves of my life,” together with their mother.
In the CBS interview, he concluded that love is what he is most thankful for – and it’s a love that acknowledges God. Both Bublé and Lopilato have regularly made references to God in regards to Noah’s health.
After revealing to comedian James Corden that his “whole life ended” after Noah’s diagnosis, Bublé repeated in October, “We just had the best doctors and, God, thank you, Jesus Christ.”
His wife was in agreement. “My faith in the fact God had a miracle helped me. I became strong so my son would get better,” the Christian Post reported Lupilato as saying while their son fought for his life. “Now, I value life much more, the now and the today.”
Their love for Noah and their other two children echoes God’s unconditional love. While many of the songs in Bublé’s new album are more traditional (think: “Unforgettable”), he appears to sing about Noah in one of the few songs he co-wrote. The lyrics of “Forever Now” read:
Through your ears I hear it
Through your eyes I see
A world full of magic
Full of possibilities
You know as well as anybody how tough this life can be
But you’ve got so much strength inside you
A strength I pray you’ll never need
And I’m always gonna lift you up
And I’m never gonna let you down
Time flies by
I hope you realize that I
I’ll love you forever now
He told the Toronto Sun that the song was about the “journey of parenthood.”
The lyrics were about “that unconditional love and care for someone or something that can’t care for itself. And sort of the sentimentality of moving through time and how fast it goes,” he said. “Part of it began autobiographically for me. I was writing it about my experience as a father, and as I continued to get through the song, I really wanted to try and leave it open for the interpretation of the listener.”
In a YouTube video published on his channel, he added that the song was “inspired by how much I love being a dad,” and that it was music “about loving something more than you could ever love yourself.”
Bublé is the first to admit that he isn’t just looking out for his family: they’re looking out for him. While on CBC radio, Bublé remembered being anxious before going on The Graham Norton Show with Carey Mulligan and Taron Egerton.
“I was trepidatious and nervous … so I called home on FaceTime,” he recalled. “I had my two kids looking at me, and I said, ‘Boys, poppy’s nervous, I’m scared. It’s getting to me today,’ and I said, ‘Would you pray for me? Would you help me to remember what’s important?’”
“They closed their eyes,” he said, and “I just heard one of my kids finish off and say ‘Amen,’ and then he looked at me and said, ‘OK, Poppy, I talked to God and it’s going to be okay,’ and man, I just instantly I felt like, I just remembered again.”
As for Noah, he’s Bublé’s personal superhero.
“I say to him,” Bublé told Corden, “‘cause he loves Spider-Man, we love Spider-Man, and I’ll always say to him, Spider-Man’s amazing, Superman’s amazing, but they’re fake. They’re not real. You’re a superhero. You’re my hero, my real superhero.”
And God, it would seem, is a real superhero of his too.