She is one of the most popular television presenters: present on our small screens for over thirty years, Laurence Boccolini is one of those rare women to have established herself on television, and to have been able to direct her shows alone, without being obliged to accept the role of co-host, as were Valérie Bénaïm, Sandrine Quétier or Karine Ferri on TF1. After more than thirty years of career, we no longer count the television successes that we owe to this presenter known to all generations: her character as a brittle presenter in The weakest link still sticks to her twenty years after the end of the game, but other shows that she hosted also remain in the memory of the French, like Money Drop and of Everyone wants to take its place. Since the start of the school year, the 60-year-old host is at the head of Children of TVsucceeding Laurent Ruquier following the latter’s departure from BFMTV.
Guest of Aurélie Casse on C the weekly this Saturday, October 28, 2023 to ensure the promotion of its late return to France 2, the one that we will find this Sunday with guests Christophe Willem, Camille Lellouche, Dove Attia, Christian Morin and Max Boublil, looked back on its beginnings somewhat complicated host, and suffice to say that even then, she knew what she wanted, and did not hesitate to say it! Having barely arrived on the airwaves of Europe 1, a channel then directed by the late Philippe Gildas, Laurence Boccolini, just 22 years old, found herself having something imposed on her that she categorically refused: “In 1985, I was told you’re going to be called Laurence. I said no, they’re going to call me Laurence Boccolini. They said yes. And it was taken very badly by certain presenters who had accepted. Yes but I didn’t accept” she explains, perhaps referring to Julie, the emblematic voice of Europe 1 who never used her surname on the air.
Beware of those who claim that Laurence Boccolini owes this atypical career that many women envy to her weight! The host, who we could also see trying her hand at comedy in Miss Joubert Then Joséphine, guardian angelclaims to have always refused to become the spokesperson for curvy women: “I didn’t want to defend the rounds. It’s not my bulges that have the talent! This character there worked but I don’t think it was because I weighed more than…” she explained, closing without saying anything more.
“I was not pretty, very round and nasty”
It was in the mid-90s that Laurence Boccolini made his debut on television, succeeding Patrice Laffont in Pyramid for three months only, then to Nagui at the helm May the best win. But it was in 2001 that Laurence Boccolini acquired national fame, by getting the reins of the game The weakest link : “I had a lot of accumulation: I wasn’t particularly pretty, I was very round, I played a villainous role, and I was never asked to lose weight” explains the one who finally stopped the game in 2007, after a significant drop in the program’s audience.
Self-confident, Laurence Boccolini has long refused bonuses which did not suit her and which she found bad, and did not hesitate to impose her style and her decisions on her management: “I asked to present some bounties on my own.” This is how we were able to see her host alone The Big Blind Test, The brains or The big competition, on his last years spent at TF1. However, she had to collaborate with other animators on many programs, such as Christophe Dechavanne on I’m a celebrity, get me out of hereChristophe Beaugrand on Big Bounce BattleBruno Roblès on First company and Jean-Pierre Foucault on numerous unit bonuses such as The Great Test.