Alongside Zabou Breitman and Pierre de Maere, Jeanfi Janssens was one of Frédéric Lopez’s guests on the show A Sunday in the countrysideSunday March 17, 2024. The comedian was questioned about the trials he faced throughout his life starting with anorexia. “As I was in boarding school, it traumatized me and I developed anorexia. I was sick, I became a pothead, I drank up to nine liters of water a day. So a difficult adolescence, my parents who did not have, the poor, who did not necessarily have the attention to manage it at that time because they were struggling with administrative and financial suffering, so it was complicated”, he remembered with a heavy heart. But the most difficult test he faced undoubtedly remains the loss of his brother. While he had just started his career with Air France, he had learned that his brother had ended his life getting off a plane in Nice.
Jeanfi Janssens slapped the receptionist after learning of his father’s death
“The receptionist tells me that my brother is dead and that I should call home. I called my mother, I understood from her screams what was happening”he said before explaining the surprising reaction he had. “I went down and slapped the receptionist.” For many hours, he was then in denial of his brother’s death. He didn’t want to and couldn’t imagine that such a thing could have happened. Finally, he had to face the facts and explained that his brother’s death had had terrible consequences on his family. “It’s terrible for the parents, for us, but for parents it’s worse! This is not in the order of things. We got no explanation, no letter… only interpretations. The first thing parents do is blame themselves for not having seen it and tell themselves that they had missed something. My brother had two young children.”, explained Stéphane Plaza’s great friend. Although he thought his parents were going to separate following this terrible loss, in the end they managed to stay together. “My parents’ relationship almost exploded, but they held on for the children and grandchildren”he concluded on this subject.