For years, he has been the humorous target of many Internet users comparing this globetrotting TV host to the indestructible Chuck Norris. Full of second degree, Bernard de La Villardière had entrusted in 2013 to the newspaper The Parisian that he had a lot of fun with these tweets, like the one that said: “It is not La Villardière who works for M6 but M6 who works for La Villardière.” Long at the helm of Restricted zoneon M6from 1998 to 2005, he now holds the reins of emissions Exclusive inquiry since 2005 and Taboo file since 2016. But behind the popular journalist who travels the world and deciphers underworld circles, the soon-to-be 65-year-old man has been suffering in the shadows and since 2018 from cancer that he still cannot eradicate, despite a operation. This Friday, March 10, 2023, during an interview given to our colleagues from TVMaghe came back with a lot of modesty and distance on his fight.
Bernard de la Villardière, aristocrat of the info https://t.co/JDkSLAjKbd
—TV Magazine (@TVMAG) March 9, 2023
“Work is man’s way of detaching himself from his condition…”
“Like hundreds of thousands of French people, I have cancer. Mine is a little complicated… It’s not a ‘good’ cancer, so I’m under surveillance every three months“, he explained first of all. Then, to express his way of seeing things, specifying that he never wanted to change his lifestyle: “I’ve had this for four years. It was a shock, but I didn’t want the disease to change my life. In my career, I had the chance to make several films about the end of life and that helped me a lot to grasp the idea of death”. With philosophy, the latter then wished to add: “I am almost 65 years old and I am delighted to work, to do what I love. There is nothing like working. Work is man’s way of detaching himself from his condition…” he wished to conclude, remaining faithful to his values and to his profession which he practices with passion. It was in 2018 that Bernard de La Villardière learned that he had cancer, just a few weeks before his departure for the Philippines where the filming of Mike Horn’s extreme show entitled Cape Horn. It all started with a melanoma in his left ear that he had been slow to treat. He also revealed that he had undergone two operations, one to extract the button, the other to cut off part of his ear. A “little glitch of health”, as he soberly explained at the time. Bernard de La Villardière remembers it, he who did not wish to communicate on this subject because it made him “fear”: “I was not in the best period of my life in terms of physical form, even if I had recovered my morale after some difficult and scary moments”.Today, despite the illness, the journalist strives to work hard, like a breath of essential oxygen, surrounded more than ever by his family: Anne de Savignac, his wife, and their children, Caroline born in 1987, Marc born in 1988, Rémi born in 1992 and Nicolas born in 1993. All our thoughts are with him.
VF
See also: Florent Pagny: the courageous and touching decision of his children in the midst of the battle against cancer!