Arsenal icon Thierry Henry explained the moment he felt loved for the first time in an emotional tell-all interview.
Henry, considered one of the greatest strikers of all time and one of the best players in Premier League history, opened up about his childhood trauma, depression and attempts to seek approval from his father on the Diary of a CEO podcast.
In one particularly open moment, the 46-year-old spoke about the moment he first felt loved and how it triggered him to quit his managerial position at Montreal.
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Henry said: “My kids saved me. I don’t know where I was going mentally, because when I came back from COVID and came back home - after that year we were allowed to come back home [for the lockdown].
“But when I knew I was going back to Montreal I didn’t know what was happening with COVID and if I was not going to see my kids for a year.
“I was at home for around a month, I packed my bags and I was about to leave again. I said ‘bye’ to my kids.
“Do you remember when I told you the young me never had any approval, never had any recognition, never had any ‘love’?
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“I packed my bags and said, ‘Okay, daddy is about to leave’. Next thing you know I put my bags down and everyone starts to cry. I had put my bags down to say ‘bye’ to everybody, and everybody started to cry, from the nanny to my girlfriend to my kids.
“For the first time - because in that moment it was ‘the little me’ that felt it - I was like ‘Oh, they see me’. Not the footballer, not the accolades and I felt human. Not like the me that always tries to please people.
He added: “I felt it for the first time there, and the little me for the first time was ‘fed’ with love. I put my bags down, stayed and stopped coaching in Montreal.
“I said to myself, ‘What am I doing?’ Am I going to go into a situation again just for a desire to please people? [The kids] love Thierry. Not ‘Thierry Henry’. They loved Thierry. So I stayed.
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“And for the first time, I felt human and felt like they saw me, the human being. That’s why I say, ‘My kids saved me’”.
Featured Image Credit: Getty/Diary of a CEOTopics: Football, Arsenal, Thierry Henry