At 71, Patrick Sébastien, the public entertainer we know, is celebrating his half-century career. Needless to say, our man was never exactly in the good books of Liberationof the Inrockuptibles and of Telerama. However, the general public loves it. He must be the only one, as they say, judging from his historic hearings of September 26, 1992; i.e. 17.5 million viewers and 74% market share, with Le Grand Bluff. A record which would not be broken until July 12, 1998, during the final between France and Brazil during the Football World Cup. In short, Patrick Sébastien is a popular artist; almost a bad word these days.
That was all it took for him to be roughly released from France Télévisions, clearly embodying the emblematic figure of “ white male over 50 years old » so dear to his boss at the time, Delphine Ernotte.
The magic of the largest cabaret in the world
Although he presented dozens of shows, one of them will probably remain in the French collective memory: The Largest Cabaret in the World where, from 1998 to 2019, it presents the cream of international circus artists, jugglers, clowns, trapeze artists, conjurers. A true happiness that brought back to all their childish eyes, even the most jaded ones. Which makes him say today, during an interview given to Parisianthis November 19: “ Today we see that entertainment no longer has its place on television. There is a kind of anxiety-provoking climate where people make themselves anxious. Just look at what they're watching: murder stories. […] The guy is on his couch, he sees the war, little girls murdered. […] He tells himself that he is already lucky that what he sees on the screen does not happen to him in reality. »
Victim of censorship
And then there is still censorship; the one who hits C8for example, a channel which regularly rebroadcasts anthologies of its best shows: “ This is not normal. They deprive two million people of their evening show. I like Cyril Hanouna, I watch it with normal people, at home, and it's neither more nor less than store-bought coffee. But viewers are not stupid enough to form their opinion based on that alone! They know what to take and what to leave. We once again despise these people. » It is true that Patrick Sébastien had already dealt with the leagues of virtue in 1995. There, on the occasion of the presidential election and in his then show on TF1, Let's darehe disguises himself as Jean-Marie Le Pen to perform a pastiche of Break your voicethe famous song by Patrick Bruel, here renamed Breaking Black. This makes just about everyone laugh, except the MRAP, which has him fined 30,000 francs. At the time, the entertainer didn't really understand what was happening to him. Although he must have learned since then: not to attack Le Pen is to make you his supposed accomplice. Moreover, when it comes to politics, he sticks to the old friendship which linked him to Jacques Chirac, “ someone who, like me, has a reputation for being a big, likeable jerk ”, as said on Europe 1.
Record sales to make people jealous
To make his case worse, Patrick Sébastien enjoyed undeniable success in singing, often drinking and rarely above the belt; is an ancestral French tradition which is perpetuated, even today, with these camping anthems that are Turn the towels, The Little Foam Man, Sardines et A little blowjob hurray!. That’s twenty-two albums in all and twenty-three compilations; all sold by carloads. Enough to make fans jealous of “ demanding music ”, to use the established formula of Monde.
To make everything better, Patrick Sébastien has shared and, above all, discreet success. Thus he launched the careers of people such as Albert Dupontel, Dany Boon, Nicolas Canteloup, Shirley & Dino or the ventriloquist Jeff Panacloc, without ever boasting about it. The consecration, even paradoxical, will come from the fact that having started his career as an imitator – not the best, not Laurent Gerra who wants –, he ended up imitated in turn by Nicolas-Bonaventure Ciatonni, known as Cartman, who caricatures him under the name of Sébastien Patoche, with this pochade, When he farts he tears a hole in his underwearto which it is immediately appropriate to grant the title of the worst joyful song ever recorded in France. However, in May 2013, this more than agile refrain sold more than Get Luckythe international hit of our very chic Daft Punk…
When he is not acting, in theater, cinema and television, our poet writes books. Twenty-five to date with the last one, hot out of the oven, on October 31: The Carnival of the Ambitious. Certainly, we are far from Montaigne and La Boétie. But we sometimes find joyful remarks there: “ The difference between women and coincidences is that there are coincidences that don't deceive », « When I leave the bistro, I walk sideways… I have to stop eating crab chips », « James Bond 007, you're talking about a secret agent, everyone knows him “. And a little last one, for the road: “ At 45, she is still as beautiful as the day… The problem is the night. »And wit, with that…
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