Juhel: I heard that you are a member of the nobility. Is this true?
Caël: I knew this question would be part of the rumour mill!
(sighs) The rumours are true. And it’s not what you think it is. I will say upfront that we’re not rich!
It’s not my mother’s side that’s the nobles; the Kegelins of Interflix are a self-made family; they descended from fisherfolk and sailors from Béthanie. It’s my Dad’s side, and it not precisely the Boënnecs. In fact, there are still Boënnecs living as farmers near Clisson. They’re commoners.
The noble side of my family are the Du Coëtlosquets, who hail from the village of the same name in the mountains of the upper Boëme valley. The Du Coëtlosquets are a baronial-rank family who were the
seigneurs of Coëtlosquet for centuries; they hold large forestry holdings in the
intendancy of Cordemais. The Du Coëtlosquets claim descent from
Chief Budoc of the Redones, one of the seven Bethonic chiefs in the Battle of Mediolanum Santonum. I haven’t seen the family tree though, but it is said the Du Coëtlosquets are the descendants of Chief Budoc’s youngest son Judicaël.
The Du Coëtlosquets survived the
Santonian Revolution because they sided with the Pope-King, the Revolutionary Estates of Bethany, and the commoners. Several family members served in the Royalist Army and even died: Baron Budoc du Coëtlosquet XIX led the regiments from Upper Bethany and died fighting for the revolutionary cause in the Battle of Saint-Gilles-près-Saintes.
It’s a bit of a history lesson, but long story short, because of longstanding traditions and its history as a confederation of tribes, in Bethany and Domnonée, many local nobles typically do not owe their positions to whoever is the duke or petty king. Rather, they have held their positions for centuries, just like the Du Coëtlosquets. Thus, local nobles in the petty kingdoms of Bethany and Domnonée were more provincial, still lived in close proximity with the peasants, spoke the same language (Bethanian), and endured the same hardships that their subjects faced. It was the local nobles rising against Duke George III of Bethany that tipped the province decisively over to the revolutionary cause. Bethany and Domnonée were the few provinces that did not completely abolish their nobility even though their dukes sided with the rebel noble cause. The Estates of Bethany allowed the minor nobles who fought for the revolution to retain part of their holdings as
retained leases. The Du Coëtlosquets were part of those.
I am descended from the Du Coëtlosquets through my paternal grandmother Landwenn du Coëtlosquet, the 97th Baroness of Coëtlosquet. Yes, they really count it. My maternal grandmother wasn’t the Baroness her entire life. My grandmother married my grandfather Brivaël Boënnec and she did not expect to inherit the barony. She suddenly inherited the barony when she was in her fifties when it was tracked down that she was the next-in-line legitimate heir of the childless 96th Baron of Coëtlosquet.
My dad Erwan is the third son of my grandmother. My uncle Kenan, my dad’s older brother, died before I was born; he didn’t have children. The second son, Ouën, is the current 98th Baron of Coëtlosquet. Uncle Ouën, or more appropriately
Father Ouën, is a priest. He is the parish priest of Coëtlosquet and its adjacent communes. Because Uncle Ouën is childless, the title would most likely pass to my father, who would become the 99th Baron of Coëtlosquet. Aaaaand because I am the only son, so there is a really big possibility that I might become the 100th Baron! Please don’t execute me!
(laughs)
Juhel: You’re a noble, the other side is the family who own Interflix, and you say you’re not rich? I think you being poor is the rumour!
Caël: Oh gosh, no. My dad was the black sheep of their siblings. As a young man he wanted to do bohemian hippie things like acting; he didn’t go to university. He almost got disowned by my grandmother. The joke in the family is that he got taken back in when they learned he was marrying into the rich Kegelins!
My dad did not want to take money from my grandmother, and neither did he want to leech off his in-laws' wealth. My mum and dad agreed that they will live within their means. Because we were a brood of five, my mum was a stay-at-home mother and dabbled part-time in small business. My dad was working two to three jobs.
I wouldn’t say we were poor, our parents did their best to make our life comfortable, but we certainly weren’t rich as my parents’ backgrounds would suggest.
Juhel: Did you get any help from your rich families?
Caël: I’d say that our relatives would’ve wanted to help, but my parents wanted to teach us the value of hard work and money. Our relatives respected our parents’ decision. We’d only get fancy stuff from our grandparents and uncles and aunts during our birthdays and holidays. Otherwise, our parents refused to spoil us.
One of the other few things that my parents allowed their relatives to do for us was to sponsor certain activities for us. For me, it was ice hockey. Ice hockey gear and ice time are expensive. My Uncle Thibault on the Kegelin side took care of my ice hockey things and expenses. Still, it was my dad who took me to practice and to games.
The other major one – and it was a surprise when my oldest sister turned eighteen – was that the Kegelins and the Boënnecs put together money for a college trust fund for each of us. My grandparents basically forced my parents to accept it, reasoning that we would be adults when the trust fund would be available to us. So the decision to accept the money should be made by us, not my parents. All five of us took the money.
Juhel: You are a trust fund baby!
Caël:
(Sighs) Technically, you could say that… and I am fortunate enough to have money to afford university. Not having to work to pay through college and its expenses allowed me to pursue my collegiate ice hockey career and a double major in Journalism and Mass Communication.
I am not flexing, but I was awarded a
Class C quota for Journalism because I had good grades in high school. Because of the trust fund, I was able to pay off the tuition entirely. In Saintonge, if you are able to pay tuition upfront without a loan, they would give you a discount on tuition. That’s what I did. The tuition itself was discounted in the first place because I had a Class C quota. On top of that, a certain percentage of the tuition was waived because I made it to the University of Bethany’s ice hockey team.
That meant I had money left over for living expenses. Because of my upbringing, I was accustomed to living frugally. By the time I finished uni, I still had some money left over. I used that money as seed capital to establish my content creation company called Seabee Productions. It’s just a small outfit, we have only four full-time employees as of the moment.
Juhel: Is this why you don’t endorse stuff or have sponsors in your videos?
Caël: Partially, yes. Seabee Productions’ model is slightly different from the other content creators. The conventional model is that the content creator makes his own content and there would be sponsor reads or affiliate links. With Seabee Productions, the companies – such as Câblé magazine or the Réquins ice hockey team – contracts us to make content for them. These would be uploaded on our client’s channels. Essentially we’re like production studios for the online presence of companies and organisations.
The videos on my
personal channel – those aren’t made for our clients. Those are my personal videos. I don’t do endorsements or sponsors so far. This is because I want to research the product/service first before endorsing them. It’s not because I don’t need the money, but my personal stance is that I will only endorse something that I personally use and I am satisfied with.
Juhel: One of the things you have endorsed is the Bethany Suicide Helpline… does it mean you have used it?
Caël: You took the wrong conclusion! Yes, I did mention the 505 Suicide Helpline in some of my videos. I even did a photoshoot for them for publicity materials.
But no, I am not “endorsing” the Suicide Helpline because I used it and I am satisfied with it. It’s not even an endorsement. I did it for free; I wasn’t paid for the photoshoots or voice-overs that I did for them. Seabee Productions was not involved in it.
Remember my Uncle Kenan that I mentioned before? My Dad’s older brother? He committed suicide before I was born. That’s why there is an increased awareness about mental health in our family. Because I did not have to work during college, I spent some of my free time taking up shifts at the Bethany Suicide Helpline. They were in need of volunteers to man the Bethanian-language helpline. They gave me training on how to deal with suicidal individuals who would call the helpline.
I spoke to a lot of people who were in dark places and were in distress. I hope all of them are doing better now. All of us get sad. All of us get depressed. Oftentimes, we just need an outlet. Someone to talk to, someone who will listen. As a college kid, I used to do that for the helpline. I hoped I helped a lot of people feel better.
Juhel: That’s very… noble of you.
Caël: Thank you! Now that my schedule is getting packed with my
careers and all, I found myself with less free time to volunteer. I now only take up shifts about once every two months or so, and I explained to them why. They were very understanding. But I told the Bethany Suicide Helpline organisation that if I can do something else for them aside from manning the phone lines, I will do it for them. Nowadays I do some content creation, photoshoots, and voice-overs for their media campaigns – I am now a volunteer social media consultant for them.
The photoshoot I did at the Suicide Helpline was one of the few things that my father – who is my talent agent and my publicist – didn’t like. Didn’t like is too strong a phrase though. I did a few scenarios and photoshoots, and they went
with the image of me pointing a gun to my head for the poster.
Normally, as my talent agent, the projects offered to me goes through my Dad. As my publicist, all pictures for publication approval also goes through my Dad too. But because the Bethany Suicide Helpline organisation knew me, they contacted me directly. They didn’t have to go through my Dad and I approved the pictures myself. That’s not the reason why he was… upset with the poster.
As I have said earlier, one of the reasons why I volunteer at the Suicide Helpline was that Dad’s older brother committed suicide when he was around my current age. Dad said that the imagery of me pointing a gun to my head was upsetting because it reminded him of Uncle Kenan. We Boënnec men look very much alike. I look like my father, my father looks like his brother (my uncle). To him, it wasn’t much of a leap of imagination that it was his brother that is pointing the gun to his head. He wasn’t angry or anything; he told me he just couldn’t bear looking at the poster. And this is my Dad who was giving me project after project that involves my characters dying!
Juhel: What were the usual things you encountered at the helpline?
Caël: Mostly relationship things. Breakups. Family issues. We also got some calls from LGBT youth. A gay teenager was upset that his parents found out he was gay and was in a relationship; they were angry and pressuring him to break up with his boyfriend. Those are the more challenging calls to take, when there is an LGBT angle I need to address. My usual technique for other calls is that I tend to tap on my experiences to reassure the callers and connect with them on a personal level… but for calls with an LGBT angle, my experience in that aspect is almost nothing.
Juhel: So you are straight? I heard some people thought you are gay. They were like “Oh Caël is an attractive successful guy in his twenties, but he doesn’t have a girlfriend… he must be gay!”
Caël: I am straight! It’s just that I am not in a relationship right now. You don’t have to be in a relationship to prove your sexuality.
Juhel: Some suspect Fintann over here is your boyfriend.
Fintann: Hey, why did I get involved here! I am just working behind the camera!
Caël: I love Fintann like a brother. He’s my friend since childhood, since we were learning how to walk haha! We’ve known each other all our lives and he’s like my brother from another mother.
Juhel: So, not gay?
Caël: I love my gay fans, but I’m afraid to disappoint you guys… I prefer girls and I am looking for a woman as my life partner.
Juhel: “Looking for??” Does it mean you are single but ready to mingle?
Caël: Yes.
Juhel: Are you dating?
Caël: Mhmmm… yes. I am dating, I hope they go well!
