On the occasion of Pink October, the month of awareness of breast cancer, which affects one in eight women in France, Aurélie Casse received the journalist Évelyne Dhéliat on the set of C the weekly on France 5. The head of the TF1 weather service had to facing breast cancer diagnosed at the end of 2012, and against which she fought for several months, urging her to leave the TF1 weather bulletins overnight. But as she revealed to Aurélie Casse this Saturday, September 30, 2023, talk about cancer was not as open ten years ago, and the disease was still taboo. The journalist, who was teaming up at that time with Catherine Laborde and Louis Bodin, then made the decision to abruptly leave the screens, without informing the viewer.
Quickly, viewers noticed the prolonged absence of the weather star, pushing her to come out of the woods, and to reveal his fight against illness… without pointing out that it was cancer: “Not being on the air for a while, viewers were worried, so with TF1, which protected me enormously, we issued a joint press release saying that I have a small health problem”. After several weeks of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, Évelyne Dhéliat returned to the screen in spring 2013, sporting a wig that viewers quickly identified…
A taboo that is tending to disappear
“I was seen coming back with a wig, the hair then grew back, so… I received messages from women who were going through the same thing as me and that was important, and it’s little by little that I realized (that it was necessary) to talk about it… I took off the wig and had short hair, this moment is strong and it was strong for viewers who told me You took it away, I took it away at the same time as you. I’ve never had hair this short in my life.” testified the 75-year-old journalist. Ten years later, the conversation around cancer seems to have become more open since Matthew Lartotsuffering from knee cancer, and Laurie Delhostalsuffering from breast cancer, did not hesitate to make their fight against the disease public.
A.D.