Fayza Lamari, Kylian Mbappé's mother: "It's the man he has become that makes me proud"

"When you see Kylian Mbappé on the front pages of the newspapers and on the pitch, do you still see your son? When I see him leaving Paris, when we warn him that PSG is closer to winning the Champions League than Real, and with his child's eyes, he replies: "Yeah, I know, but it doesn't matter, I'm starting from scratch," then I see the Kylian who was dreaming in his room. On the pitch, when he plays and he doesn't defend, I recognize my son just as well. Since he was 4 years old, he hasn't defended! (She laughs.) Afterwards, when the fans encourage him or boo him, then yes, you lose your son. He "belongs" to everyone, except you. In fact, he doesn't have time for anything other than football at that level. When you really want to do this job with passion, with seriousness, there isn't much time for anything else. Besides, I'm not sure I would have liked to do that, but it's his choice. Because next to the ball, you have no life.

Being the mother of an icon, is it scary or does it galvanize? I don't like the word "icon." Sometimes it scares me, it saddens me. We only remember the fame, but we rarely talk about the expectations it generates and all the consequences. So, fear, yes, but also joy when I see the role model he can be. It's more the man he's become that makes me proud. The man more than the player.

Do you understand the reactions of children when they meet him? I saw Kylian react the same way when he met Zidane. When he met him at 14, he said to me: "Mom, he touched my coat, I don't wash it anymore." So I know what that can mean for a kid. When they're not children, facing him, it makes me more perplexed.

There was Zidane and CR7... He started with Zidane. From the age of 4. Then there was CR7 when he arrived in Manchester, then at Real. Then there was Robinho, Ronaldinho... As for Cristiano... Kylian was Portuguese in his head. For him, he was Portuguese. He would go to a friend's father's house to watch Portugal matches and support Ronaldo. (She laughs.) He was in love. He would say, "I am Portuguese."

How old was he? Very late. I won't say age, because it'll insult me. But it lasted a very long time.

"When he re-signed with PSG (in 2022), we were the ones who asked him to stay. That's the only time we intervened."

Can we still protect our child when he becomes so powerful? A mother can always protect her child, whatever the environment in which he evolves, whether he's at Real Madrid or at Bobigny University Hospital. A mother remains a mother even if in this environment, you can easily lose your son. But it's not fame that isolates, it's judgments. What we used to say in the local café is now written on social media and relayed millions of times. It's not representative of general opinion, but it makes noise. What bothers us more is that the mainstream media, like yours for example, can give so much importance to this noise. It's a bit like us in the suburbs. We often hear about the 8% who do stupid things, and we don't expose the 92% who succeed.

You no longer live in the suburbs, and neither does Kylian... Your upbringing is marked by suburban culture. You remain enriched by the social mix that saw you grow up. But these values ​​of tolerance, mutual aid, and innovation are not exclusively found in the suburbs. They are also found in the countryside or in the depths of India or Peru.

You accompanied your sons into this world of football with their father. The roles are clear. He's the sportsman, you're the one in charge of money. What did you learn? Before Kylian, we accompanied Jirès (Kembo Ekoko ) . He had spent three years without playing at Rennes before things changed radically after his contract extension. We met with the management at the time to understand, and they told us that he was playing because he was no longer the lowest paid player in the team. There, I understood that in fact, it's not a human story, but rather a story of "how much you cost or how much you're going to bring in." So very quickly, for Kylian, the only way for us to get a club to consider our kid was to pay him a lot.

How would you define your role in Kylian's sporting choices ? We've known since he was 15 where he was going. So, with his father, we were simply there to ensure he went to Madrid. When he re-signed with PSG (in 2022) , we were the ones who asked him to stay. It was the only time we intervened. There was a lot of pressure. When you're told that you'll have to lay off employees if he leaves, that there's the problem of TV rights, that it's Paris, that there's the new training center, the Olympics, the World Cup coming up... And then, Paris was on the right track to win the Champions League. It turns out that today, everything is working. But I knew that when Luis Campos arrived, things would go well.

And what did Kylian understand that others didn't? Kylian loves football passionately. Which isn't necessarily the case for a lot of kids anymore. Getting up every day, training every day, not having a life outside of it, it's a form of sacrifice. Today, we see him getting off a plane, he has a good life, he earns a lot of money but, compared to a kid his age (26 years old) , he has no social life. You'd better love what you do to avoid mental health problems. Clubs should consider him from the training stage. I think what makes Kylian strong is that he loves it deeply. It's an addiction!

Do you manage to see each other? Not much because the schedules are very busy. When he exceptionally has three days off, I don't go and tell him , "Come see your mother." Even though his father and I are separated, we try to spend four days together at Christmas. And then, in the summer, we try to spend four or five days together as well. Except when there's a Club World Cup. (She laughs.) The only moments of intimacy you can have during the season are spending three or four hours like that... But you're never really alone. Yesterday, I told him, "Get your driving test. At least let yourself be alone in your car." He couldn't get it in Paris for security and organizational reasons.

In Madrid, it's cooler. He told me, "You're not wrong, but the code tires me out." I insisted. "You'll see, it'll do you good to have thirty minutes to yourself, without a driver, without a security guard. You take your car, you listen to the music you want to listen to..." But, yes, moments of intimacy with him, I don't have that many. You take what you can take. Last year, he joined me for a few days in my house in the South without anyone and... without Wi-Fi. He was disgusted, but he ended up telling me: "It feels good..."

As a result, you're also very much in the media. I wasn't ready for that. I was so scared, I wasn't well. From his first Champions League match (as a starter) with Monaco against Manchester City (in the round of 16 first leg, on February 21, 2017) , I said to myself: "It's Justin Bieber!" I gained 22 kg because of the stress between that match and the transfer to Paris-Saint-Germain (which took place six months later) . Now, I've tamed this life. I've bought my calm, I have my place to recharge my batteries when things aren't going well.

But the behavior of family, close or distant, has inevitably evolved with success, right? Wilfrid and I are lucky to have two families where everyone is close to the children. No one bothers them or asks them for anything, while we are very happy. Afterwards, for the others, we always told Kylian that it's not him who changes, but people's perception. I don't feel like I've changed. However, I've sometimes been criticized for having forgotten where I come from. It hurts a little, but afterwards, you move forward. I can't save the world, but I know that what we do at our level, few do.

"When I hear that he made communication mistakes... Let's come back down to earth, he doesn't have a master's degree in crisis communication."

Were you afraid that Kylian would descend into those bad sides, the arrogance? Yes, I was afraid. There are times when he's been arrogant, of course. But you're there to bring him back down. Let's take the press conference with the French national team a year ago. When he responded about the boring level of play of the Blues: "What people think is the least of my worries..." When I saw the mess it created when I turned my phone back on after my nap, my first reaction was to want to blame him for not having kept his mouth shut... But I changed my mind. At that moment, he's not well, he also has the right to say so. Which he never really did. You have the right to be drunk, to show that you're human, but that's misunderstood. At the same time, since he was little, people have asked his opinion on everything... When I hear that he made communication mistakes... Let's come back down to earth, he doesn't have a master's degree in crisis communication. Listen to what he tells you, he's never used wooden language. It's just that people always imagine that he's calculating.

Where does his ease of communication come from? Kylian was raised with his Cameroonian grandparents, who master the French language like no one else. Wilfrid says his father could enter public speaking competitions. Then, Kylian grew up in an adult world among eleven uncles and aunts. A fairly cultured world, including my sister, a teacher, and parents in the sports world. When you combine that, plus his brain, which wasn't the same as everyone else's, you get what you see on screen. At 5, he knew Aznavour's entire repertoire by heart... That's not the case with all kids. (She laughs.) He's more proficient at Tiakola today.

Many people think he has high intellectual potential. They wanted to do the tests, but he didn't complete them. Well, the school did, because he couldn't sit still. It's still the case. But since the others were at recess and he wanted to play soccer with them, he botched the test. They still decided to make him skip a grade, he moved up to a double level. In CM2, they changed his school so he could have an individualized and adapted program. Otherwise, he was bored and did nothing but mischief. In 6th grade, the teacher asked him to take the door one day. He took it literally and took the door off. I thought I was going to kill him. The only place we never had a problem was soccer. There, he was self-sufficient.

"Not living normally is weighing on him. He's 26 years old, and it's only been four years since he discovered how to withdraw money with a credit card."

Self-sufficient, that is to say? Kylian needed to have fun. And nothing has changed on that front. He doesn't need anything else... Recently, his father and I told him: "That's good, you're taking the armband." He replied: "I see some constraints!" I also understand why we gave him this responsibility. He's a natural leader. But it requires a lot: opening up to others and representing them, going to press conferences... Everything he's always hated. When he was young, in Monaco, he once said to me: "Mom, can't I play football like Daft Punk, with a mask?" He hasn't changed his mind. Not living normally weighs on him. He's 26 years old, and it's only been four years since he discovered how to withdraw money with a credit card. Once, a few years ago, he got into a friend's Clio just to drive around the Paris ring road. He wanted to understand how the loop worked. He was looking for a moment of freedom, above all. He's still high. (She laughs.)

He's constantly trying to desacralize football. When, after PSG's victory (in the Champions League final) , he said he didn't feel any bitterness and was simply super happy for Ousmane (Dembélé) and his mates, that's the truth. They called each other, he was happy... Because his Parisian story was over (in the summer of 2024) . A year earlier, when PSG asked him to come back to training quickly, he told me: "No, I'm not going back, I can't play." I told him: "Kylian, you're going to dwell on it." I knew that if he went on vacation, PSG would lose him for six months. He needs to play to be happy. All the off-field obligations and consequences, he would like to do without them. Even the parade on the Champs-Élysées in 2018, he asked me if he had to go. When you see him, you say to yourself: "He likes the light." But, as soon as he can't be there, he doesn't go there.

Isn't the hardest thing for him to be certain of the authenticity of the relationship you can have with a boyfriend, a girlfriend, new friends? Certain, he will never be. I asked him recently if he had a girlfriend. He replied: "Do you see a girlfriend in this mess?" It's complicated being Kylian Mbappé's girlfriend. With everything that it entails. He's already had some and it's not easy for both of us. As a family, our thing is to play things down. When he comes and says to us: "I was useless" , I answer: "Useless? It's not strong enough, you were asleep, yes!" And we move on very quickly.

That's also his strength, knowing that there's always the next match? And that will be the strength of every child who plays high-level sport. I hear kids hiring mental coaches. What for? Kylian and Ethan have neither a physical coach nor a mental coach. If there's a psychological problem, they'll consult a psychologist. They'll work on themselves. But they'll never consult someone to know how to approach a match. Football must remain a game. What made these clubs come looking for our kids at the age of 10? It's because they enjoyed playing. That notion has disappeared. Of course there's pressure in football. In a World Cup final, yes, there's pressure, that's for sure, but the best way to manage it is to let go. We always told our kids this: the World Cup final is an eleven-on-eleven match, with a ball that has to cross a line. We're not asking you to invent the rabies vaccine. You're not supposed to save anyone's life.

But we can't deny that these events go beyond the sporting sphere alone... Because it's a band-aid. When the French team wins, there are plenty of laws or problems that we forget. A magical and enchanted interlude. When PSG won, it was the same. But so much the better, because the players are also there to provide these joys, but they are not there to be universal band-aids either. We demand much more from the footballer than from the surgeon... I'm also not sure that we appreciate that a footballer can earn so much, generate so much publicity while, conversely, people who go on to do a bac +10 in medicine earn so little. It makes me angry.

"Parents are victims of this system. How can you blame a parent for accepting 100,000 euros when the family is struggling to make ends meet? Let's sit down and try to protect our children."

And that's why families or parents want to implement their "Mbappé project " . It saddens me. I want to explain what the Mbappé project really was. Love, play, pleasure. The only requirement we had was that they have the means to achieve their ambitions. Like the parent of a child who decides to enter preparatory school because he dreams of becoming an engineer.

Except that Kylian and Ethan were much younger than a prep school kid when they decided to become professionals. Ethan is at PSG at 10 years old. I'm told that he has to eat well to succeed and that he's locked in a locker room before a match because he has to be focused. It annoys me quite a bit. Yes, nutrition is important, but he has time, the kid, he's 10 years old. When you go to the fair, you buy your cotton candy. Football tournaments are the same. You play for fun and eat your merguez sausage with mayonnaise between matches. I've never seen Wilfrid say to one of his children: "Get up at dawn, we're going running!" Even when they were older and he was preparing them physically before the start of the school year during the holidays, there was always this notion of pleasure. It was hard, they sometimes doubled the sessions, but the most important thing was also the time he spent with them.

The priority is to go to school and the message is: "Let them play, let them laugh." If the kid is good, it will come. But, in fact, it's not even to the parents that I want to send a message, it's to the institutions. Stop picking them up at 8 years old, stop putting them on a database as if they were products. Parents are victims of this system. How can you blame a parent for accepting 100,000 euros when the family is struggling to make ends meet? Let's sit down and try to protect our kids because we are lucky in France to have a real pool of talent. In the centers, I would like them to be educated to become men and not footballers. Hence the purchase of SM Caen .

Is this the project you want to carry out there? We are quickly judged by sporting results (Caen was relegated to the National this summer after six seasons in Ligue 2) , but in the long term we would like to succeed in educating the child with the parents. We would also like the parents to be as happy, for the child to succeed later in his adult life even if he does not succeed in football.

How far did Kylian get in his schooling? He fooled us. In his second year of high school, he was in Monaco. I told him, "Take a literary baccalaureate." He could have also taken a science or economics degree. He read a lot. He reads less today, but back then, he read everything. Comics, novels, manga, biographies of famous people... When he arrived in Monaco with his books, they made fun of him, so he stopped reading them. And so in his second year of high school, when it came time to consider his career path, he asked his teacher which baccalaureate to choose, but he didn't open a book or a notebook. And he added, "Because my parents want me to take a baccalaureate, but I'm sure I'm going to be a footballer, so tell me which one it is."

"I watch them on TV (his sons), I can't stand stadiums anymore."

She recommended STMG. He followed this course in his first year, but after four months, he came home unmotivated. He was bored. I offered him the chance to go back to literature. "It'll help you understand the nuances and implications of football." He was convinced, and so was middle school, but on the condition that he repeat the year. He never wanted to wait that long, only did six months because by the end of his senior year, he was already totally into football. He took his baccalaureate without having gone to school. He passed without being bad at vocational subjects, but he got like 17 in the French oral exam, 18 in history and math.

Do you still go to the stadium to see your sons play? I watch them on TV, I can't stand stadiums anymore. I've spent my life around football. This year, I followed Ethan on the big TV and Kylian on the iPad. I watch both, but I don't go. I spend my life in the stands otherwise. And then, you don't watch the match the same way anymore. You just think: let them play well, otherwise we'll be destroyed. Between the one who bet 200 euros and the ex-player turned consultant who wants to get noticed on the radio, it's complicated. It affects me, because I hate injustice...

Has being Kylian's mother made you lose personal things? Of course, but it also made me gain things. When you're the mother of, you no longer live the same life as everyone else. Every two or three days, there's a new news story. You can go from a pleasant news story to another that destabilizes, as happened in Sweden (Kylian Mbappé's name was mentioned by the Swedish press as part of an investigation for rape and sexual assault in October 2024, a case that has since been closed).

Was that the hardest episode to live through? Without a doubt. There had already been two small alerts with false rumors that some had let circulate. We knew that there weren't only positive people around Kylian. What's extraordinary about this episode is that he was never summoned by the Swedish or French justice system. So I was a little surprised that the entire French press sent reporters there... If Kylian had done something wrong in Sweden, I would have been the one to take him to the police station. As a woman, that would have meant that I had missed an education wagon, and my children know perfectly well that on this subject, they won't have me.