There are addictions that ruin a life. After several difficult months, Pierre Arditi is delighted to be back on stage and with his audience. The actor, who took advantage of a break to rest, was the guest of the show At Jordan’s on June 28. The opportunity for him to return to an addiction that could have destroyed his life.
“Pierre, I know you are a very big player at the casino,” started Jordan de Luxe before being taken over by his guest. “No I was,” said Pierre Arditi. The journalist then wanted to learn more.
“What is the most money you have lost at the casino?” , he asked the person concerned, who recalled a memory he will never forget.
Pierre Arditi did not give any details regarding the date of the events but he remembers them as if it were yesterday.
“One evening I lost the holiday money of my wife, Florence Giorgetti and my son,” he began. At that time, today’s technology did not yet exist. “There was no cell phone. I left suddenly, I was alone and I spent 1 hour on the phone in a booth, in the rain to try, at least to get this money back”, continued Pierre Arditi. The actor said he was able to recover the sum but it allowed him to think a lot about his situation.
Pierre Arditi: “I was disfigured”
Having recovered the lost sum, Pierre Arditi gave everything to his ex-wife and she was able to enjoy a holiday with her son. “I found myself all alone, thinking that I was going to join them,” assures the comedian. However, this is not what happened. “And then I looked in the mirror and didn’t recognize myself,” continues Pierre Arditi who adds: “I was disfigured by this kind of vice that was eating away at my personality.” At his worst, the actor made a radical decision. “I said to myself: there are two schools of thought, my boy. Either you shoot yourself in the head or you stop, you tell everything and you pay it back,” he revealed before concluding, proud of himself: “That’s what I did”.
This is not the first time that Pierre Arditi has spoken openly about his gambling addiction. Guest ofEurope 1
In 2022, he made unexpected confidences on this subject.At one time, I was on fire. I was a real gambler, that is to say I went to play in clubs and in casinos,” he explained. Subsequently, Pierre Arditi explained that he had a sudden realization.One day my narcissism saved me because I was losing myself. I said to myself:
“It might take me ten years to pay back what I owe.” after having stupidly lost it and having lost my mind”, he remembered.
Pierre Arditi and the casino: a descent into hell that he will never forget
Some artists fall into drugs or alcohol but this is not the case with Pierre Arditi. For his part, it was the casino that was a real descent into hell for him. In 2019, it is in the columns of Gala
that he had spoken about this period with complete transparency. He had first remembered going there for the first time in the late 1960s. While he was earning a good living, young Pierre had fun with his friends in a gambling club near the Opera in Paris. “The first time I won, I went back alone and my luck quickly changed”he recalled before continuing: “I started making up lame excuses to get out of work and go back to playing, hoping to make up for it. I made up things to borrow, I forged signatures.”
Became
addicted to victories and different gamesPierre Arditi never thought he would ever be able to get out of it. He had a lot of trouble moving forward. His realization after the share of the money for his ex-wife and son’s vacation allowed him to move on. It took him ten years to settle his debts but, thanks to his narcissism, he managed to put aside this bad period of his life. Although he admits to not having lacked anything, the actor affirmed that he wanted to be
“the one through whom the commitment enters the house”. A wish that he managed to fulfill thanks to his career.
