Philippe Bouvard bows out. At the age of 94, the journalist and father of Big heads will retire on January 1, 2025 after 60 years of career. An announcement he made this Sunday June 23 in the show RTL Matin Weekend during his last column of the season Portraits of Philippe Bouvard. If he only wishes to deliver the antiphon definitively on January 1, it is for a very particular reason.
“There is a temptation, which is not a temptation of laziness, but a temptation of record, and that is to go until January 1st, that will already be not bad, and then to listen to others and do the silence”, he first explained, referring to the retirement that he refused to take for a long time. “Because on January 1, I will have established the double record that I hoped for, that is to say for radio and 60 years of RTL. It’s the radio record”continued the one which started in 1965 on Radio Luxembourgbecome RTL one year later. “I wish I had this onehe continued. Because, I won’t hide it from you, I really liked the radio, and the radio made me feel so.”
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Philippe Bouvard reconciled with Laurent Ruquier
For 37 years, Philippe Bouvard hosted the cult show Big heads which he launched in 1977, before passing the torch to Laurent Ruquier in 2014. But the relationship between the two men was not always in good shape. On several occasions, the two men had disemboweled each other in the media. Philippe Bouvard did not hesitate to describe his successor as “uninteresting person”. Spikes judged “pathetic” by Laurent Ruquier. But since then, water seems to have flowed under the bridges. Last December, for his birthday, the 61-year-old host called him to show his admiration for his work. It was the first time since the handover that the two cult presenters of Big heads were brought together on the radio. “You will forever remain, and you know it very well, one of my masters in this profession. I thank you again for creating this show which amused me when I was young“, declared Laurent Ruquier.
Photo credits: COADIC GUIREC / BESTIMAGE
