Audience: What made you decide to collaborate with WW?
Valerie Damidot: I really wanted to lose weight to be in shape. I started a show and a tour and I didn’t want to be exhausted after five minutes on stage. But I have thyroid problems and it’s hell for me to lose weight! I thought I would try WW and it worked.
How much did you lose?
14 pounds in a year. I’m really happy. At my age, with my health concerns and the menopause, I know full well that I cannot lose 50 kilos in two weeks! I liked that WW is not a diet. We teach you to eat better according to your activities. All while being supervised, with a community, coaches, lives… It’s not a diet where you are starved and made to feel guilty. The only way to manage to lose weight is to have decided it yourself: it must not be an order from society, from your husband, from your job…
“I’m super shy”
Did these injunctions weigh on you?
When I started on TV, in 2006, a journalist told me: “Isn’t it too hard to present a prime with a radio physique?” I have also been asked if it is not complicated to be on screen with an “atypical physique”. All because I’m not 1.80 m and 30 kilos! Before me, there was only Marianne James and Laurence Boccolini. When you’re on TV, you’re made to feel like age matters, weight matters, everything matters. Personally, I combine: I have an outdated age for TV, I don’t have the physique and I’m a big mouth!
Big mouth in public but shy in private, say your relatives…
Yes, oddly, I’m super shy. A few days ago, I played for the first time my one-woman-show, Valérie Damidot exposes herself. People were delighted, I got a standing ovation but I couldn’t take it! I started crying and ran away. It was too emotional! Taking compliments is very difficult for me. And again, I learn: as a child, it was worse!
How was your childhood?
Joyful. It was no matter how modest we were, I went on vacation, I was going to camp… I was an only child but I had cousins and a lot of friends: friends, for me, are a real extension of the family. My parents loved me and always supported me. They also told me themselves that I was not made for office life!
“I have an outdated age for TV!”
Where does your passion for decoration come from?
My family didn’t have sorrel, so we got furniture from the flea market, my father sanded it down and painted it. Very early on, I started to restore furniture.
Is it hard to bounce back from a program as embodied as D&CO?
No, because I did a series and theater afterwards. It’s the TV that’s complicated. But I am not vindictive. Everything is fine in my life. I have a guy, kids and friends that I love. I am lucky to be able to go on stage. I have no revenge to take!
You have been with your companion, Régis, for twenty years. What’s your secret?
The secret is that we kick our ass every day! Everyone tells you: “Yes, sex is essential”. OK, but laughing is much more important. When you get angry, it doesn’t last because you end up laughing.
Why didn’t you get married? Yet he asked for your hand.
Because the organization is crazy! And the wheat it costs, it’s crazy! I prefer to put my money elsewhere and have a mechoui in my garden with my friends.
When you met Régis, your children Roxane and Norman were 7 and 5 years old. Didn’t that scare him?
Frankly not. I was honest from the start: “If you go out with me, there is a package”. They immediately adopted him and he raised them. For them, Régis is their father.
What kind of mother are you?
With us, there is no taboo subject. We tell each other everything ! I’m not the mother friend either: I let them do a lot of little things, but I was also there for homework and discipline. It did not scare them away: Roxane, who is a designer, left the house only last year, to settle 700 meters away. And Norman, who is an actor, still lives with us.
A few months ago, you mentioned your two abortions, at 21 and 29. Why have you done it?
I had the impression that we were going to come back to the abortion laws. Having a baby should be a choice and a freedom, especially since it’s very hard to raise a child! We haven’t always decided to get pregnant: it happens even when protected. Me, I didn’t get pregnant to have an abortion… It’s a violent moment. My first abortion went very badly: the doctor tried to make me feel guilty, it was hell. I experienced a drama, physically and psychologically. We are told about parity, choice of women, but the guys always decide for us!
Are you interested in politics?
Yes. I am deeply humanist, therefore rather on the left. I find it hard to hear what is being said in this campaign! Valérie Pécresse talking about the great replacement… The world is going badly, we must move forward in a benevolent direction! As for Marine Le Pen, she has been known as Little Red Riding Hood since Éric Zemmour arrived! In forty days, we vote: I want to cry! In addition, many politicians do not understand the miseries of people who work: I think that a president should not be elected before having worked ten years in different positions. The school of life is better than the big schools.
Key dates
1. January 18, 1965
Born in La Garenne-Colombes. An only child, she has an accountant mother and a father who has become a police commissioner.
2. 2006
France discovers it on M6, in D&CO. She already knows the other side of television, she who was notably the nanny of the candidates of the Star Ac.
3. 2021
She celebrated her 20th birthday with her partner, sound engineer Régis Viogeat. He raised his two children, Roxane and Norman.
4. 2022
WW ambassador, she lost 14 kilos. A change that helps her on stage, where she offers her one-woman-show.
See also: Valérie Damidot: with Cyril Hanouna “we barely rolled shovels”!
Interview by Maëlle Brun