At the end of August, Dany Turcotte and Guy A. Lepage celebrated the 10e birthday of Thomas, the youngest son of Guy A. Lepage, of whom Dany Turcotte is the godfather. Yes, it’s a small environment, Quebec showbiz.
The reception took place at the home of Guy A. Lepage and his partner Mélanie Campeau, in Plateau Mont-Royal. Between two bites of the cake in the shape of a Real Madrid sweater, Dany Turcotte talked about the book he was about to launch, without ever mentioning that several passages of the book were harsh on the host, the co-producer Guillaume Lspérance as well as the research team of the popular Radio-Canada talk show.
“At the party, Dany only asked me if we were going to invite her to Everyone is talking about it this fall,” recalls Guy A. Lepage in a telephone interview.
In his autobiography D. Turcotte & filswhich comes out Thursday, the ex-member of Blood Group does not put on white gloves to talk about his comrade and friend Guy A. Lepage, with whom he shared the screen, every Sunday evening, for sixteen years and half.
With a pen that is both acidic and bitter, Dany Turcotte, 59 years old, deplores that Guy A. Lepage “loves all the records, all the series, all the books”, he is sorry that the host no longer takes a position, this who forced him to carry out the “low deeds of the team”.
Even with more than three years of hindsight, Dany Turcotte persists: “I am left with the impression that someone watched me drown without throwing a buoy at me,” he relates in his book. The former king’s fool also specifies that his colleagues at Everyone is talking about it “passively watched him die slowly”.
According to my information, these revelations from Dany Turcotte, which he had never verbalized in more than 16 years, put several members of the team Everyone is talking about it “in tabarnak”. The researchers discovered, by reading the 344-page book, all the resentment, the distress and the extent of Dany Turcotte’s reproaches towards them. The shock was brutal, because no one saw it coming.
“I’m just very disappointed for my team, who received this like a brick in the face. What we read doesn’t correspond at all to the way we work with people. Dany never told us that he wasn’t doing well. It was difficult to guess how he felt,” explains Guy A. Lepage, surprised by Dany Turcotte’s lack of recognition for the show that made him rich and famous.
We agree that Everyone is talking about it put Dany Turcotte on the map. And after his resignation in February 2021, Dany Turcotte’s television schedule was less busy.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY RADIO-CANADA
Guy A. Lepage and Dany Turcotte, in 2020
Guillaume Lspérance, whom Dany Turcotte describes as the real producer of the show, also jumped when crossing D. Turcotte & fils. “We are surprised and sad that he felt like that. He could easily communicate with us. In the evening, when I saw Dany responding to comments on Twitter, I called her to tell her to stop hurting herself, I reminded her that people loved her,” says Guillaume Lspérance, who works at Everyone is talking about it since the first episode, relayed on September 12, 2004.
Dany Turcotte points to the summer of 2020 as a pivotal moment in the crumbling of his confidence on the jester’s stool. In order to modernize the formula, producer Guillaume Lspérance then announced to Dany Turcotte that he would no longer give out his humorous “little cards” at the end of the interviews. A concept that had had its day. It was the decision to make.
Also, Guillaume Lspérance suggested to the jester to no longer talk about charities at the opening of the show, but to send a gag on current events. Dany Turcotte then experienced “a shock”. Deprived of his little cards and his causes to defend, he feels “like a declawed cat”. He broods for several months.
In the fall of 2020, a lost Dany Turcotte asked that the research team write him a question to ask during each of the interviews on the show, then presented in a minimalist COVID-19 format. This is refused to him: it is not within the mandate of the jester to conduct interviews.
“This cry for help has not been heard. I sink to the bottom, and no one offers me a hand to help me breathe,” relates Dany Turcotte in the last part of his book.
In a particularly mean-spirited bit, Dany Turcotte regrets that Guy A. Lepage has seven people to prepare his interviews, in addition to having André Ducharme in his ear, while he has to make do with the crumbs.
It is this type of gratuitous remark that struck the hard core of Everyone is talking about it. Because Dany Turcotte had access to all the guests’ research files and an author helped him write the text of his little cards.
On the evening of February 14, 2021, Dany Turcotte asked Mamadi Camara, a Montrealer unjustly arrested and imprisoned by the police, the question too often: do you still plan to use your cell phone while driving? This insensitive remark unleashes social networks and Dany Turcotte is once again having a bad time.
“Perhaps it was a desperate gesture to get me off the air,” suggests Dany Turcotte in his autobiography, conceding that his compass no longer pointed north.
Dany Turcotte resigns on February 18, 2021, the day after the publication of a column in which I was harsh towards him.
“The chronicler smells the smell of blood and, in his text devoid of empathy, he casually stabs me, probably dreaming of hanging my plume above his fireplace,” thinks Dany Turcotte in D. Turcotte & fils.
Gossip, set: three candidates passed the final audition to land the role of the king’s fool in 2004, namely Maxim Martin, Louis Morissette and Dany Turcotte. According to Dany Turcotte, if these auditions had taken place in 2024, “we would probably only invite women or members of a cultural minority”.
Live on Sunday evening, Dany Turcotte seemed surprised that his book could have hurt his former collaborators. As if he didn’t realize the weight of the words he himself put down on paper.
His interactions with Guy A. Lepage oozed unease and discomfort. That said, it’s a TV moment that will go down in history for all these reasons.
Guy A. Lepage did not think of removing Dany Turcotte from the set after reading his autobiography. “We must not lose sight of the fact that the show is called Everyone is talking about it and that it’s a subject that everyone is talking about,” insists Guy A. Lepage.
As has been the tradition for 20 years, the team and guests of Everyone had a bite to eat late Sunday evening after the presentation of the show. There was only one person missing at the Rouge-Gorge wine bar, on Mont-Royal Avenue: Dany Turcotte.