Vanessa Paradis: 'I don't have the recipe for happiness'

By Jon Warech

While promoting her latest film, "Cornouaille," Vanessa Paradis, the longtime partner of Johnny Depp, opened up to French Elle magazine about her split from the eccentric actor ... but not before saying she wasn't interested in discussing her personal life.

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"I don't want to talk about him," she said. "Who said that artists should sell their soul, expose everything about themselves? … It's my duty to promote this movie, and my albums, but can you imagine what it feels like to see people making a business out of your pain. What's happened to us is our concern."

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But as the interview went on, Paradis, 39, opened up just enough to reveal her thoughts on their 14-year relationship coming to an end.

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"I don't have the recipe for happiness, but I think the engine is simply having the desire," she said. "It's not feeling obliged or forced or repeating yourself."

"I hate, for example, whenever you hear someone say: 'You have work at being a couple,'" she continues. "No, you have to want to be there. And for me, I want to be right where I am right now.'"

Days prior to the split being announced, Paradis hinted at heartache in another interview.

Paradis told Harper's Bazaar magazine, "Love is the strongest and most fragile thing we have in life. Nothing is ever for sure, but when something in love doesn't work from the beginning, it's never going to work. Don't push it."

The former couple have two children, Lily-Rose, 14, and Jack, 10.