New candidate for Dancing with the Stars, David Douillet is the father of five children born of his relationships with three different women.
After a stint with Mask Singer and a high-flying performance in Les Traitors, David Douillet continues his little tour of television. This Friday, September 9 at 9 p.m., the former Olympic champion joins season 12 of Dancing with the stars, on TF1. For the occasion, Closer invites you to dive into the private life of the man who marked the history of French judo and to discover in particular who his five children are.
David Douillet: this first son he met 10 years after his birth
David Douillet is the head of a large family. Indeed, the one who was also Nicolas Sarkozy’s Sports Minister is the father of five children. The first of them is Christopher. Born in 1990, the latter only discovered the existence of his father in 2000. “When I met Christopher, my 10-year-old son who I didn’t even know existed, I remember saying to him, ‘I understand what you’re going through.’ And for good reason: I had experienced it myself a few months earlier, when I found my father, whom I had never seen”explained David Douillet in 2007 in the columns of our colleagues at Gala.
David Douillet: his second son is a professional basketball player
In 1991, the former judoka became a father for the second time with the birth of Jeremiah. The latter opted, like his father, for the world of sport. But where his illustrious father shone on the tatami mats, Jérémie Douillet opted for the parquet floors by becoming a professional basketball player. From the height of his 2.05 meters, the young man played in particular in Nantes, in Pro B, before spending most of his career at the third national level, in N1, in various clubs such as Chartres, Angers or Vitré. Now 31 years old, this pivot trained in Orleans currently plays for the Beaujolais Basket club in N2.
David Douillet: his first daughter Myriam is a lawyer
In 1994, David Douillet became a father for the second time. His ex-wife, Valerie, gave birth to a baby girl named Myriam. The latter became a lawyer at the Paris bar and was, for a time, in a relationship with Saia Tonginoa, a famous Australian rugby league player. With his ex-wife, Valérie, David Douillet was a dad for the third time. In 1998, Matteo was born. On his Linkedin account, the young man defines himself as someone with “a sensitive and creative nature” and “passionate about psychology”. He then turned to communication and now works in the hotel industry. In 2007, in the columns of Gala, Valérie, the mother of David Douillet’s three children, confided in their education: “We give our children what we have been deprived of. Our parents explained things to us little, they wanted to preserve us. And since we suffered from that, we don’t want the pattern to happen again. talk to each other. A lot. And then, with six kids at home [elle était déjà maman d’enfants nés d’une précédente relation, ndlr]we can say that we have experience”.
David Douillet: in 2016, he became a dad for the fifth time!
In 2014, a few years after separating with loss and crash from Valérie, David Douillet met Vanessa Carrara, a hypnotherapist whom M6 viewers recently discovered in the first season of Traitors. The latter became the wife of the former Olympic judo champion in 2017. A year earlier, she had given birth to Blanche, her third child, her first with David Douillet and the fifth for the former Minister of Sports. Born in 2016, the little Blanche therefore has a 26-year difference with Christopher, the biggest of her big brothers with a particular history.
David Douillet: “I want to be able to replace my wife 100%”
In November 2020, still in the columns of the Gala, David Douillet confided in his role as head of the family. “Before, I had a very intense professional life. Politics in particular, my role as deputy, minister, prevented me from participating in the life of the home. Today, I want to be able to replace my wife 100% when she I’m not there and get fully involved in the household”, explained the former Olympic champion. David Douillet also confided in his love affair with Vanessa. “I’m not going to play the violin on you, but we are happy together, and it’s natural. It was not easy to leave our spouses. We felt like we were ruining everything, starting from scratch. But that is part of the hardships we have gone through”he indicated.
David Douillet: why he decided to reconnect with his father Donald
Like his first son Christopher, David Douillet did not know his father when he was a child. “I found my male referents elsewhere – especially in judo. But I have an atrocious memory of back to school where you had to fill out the cursed information sheet: mother’s profession, father’s name… It weighed on me so much that I invented fathers for myself. Little by little, I shielded myself. Pathos is not my thing”he explained in 2007. But when he became an adult, the former judoka decided to reconnect with Donald, his father. For a very specific reason: “I wanted to give a grandfather to my little ones, Jérémie and Myriam. And then, I was independent, I no longer needed him. I had nothing to lose and everything to gain”.