More than six months after the death of Jean-Pierre Pernaut, Jacques Legros is preparing to release a book. In it, the journalist talks about his real relationship with the ex-presenter of 1 p.m. TF1.
His absence at the funeral of Jean-Pierre Pernaut had fueled all the rumors. On March 2, the historic presenter of 1 p.m. TF1 died at the age of 71 from lung cancer. Nathalie Marquay, her children, her relatives, but also the faces of television met a week later, on March 9, to attend her funeral. It was in the Sainte-Clotilde basilica, in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, that they met to pay a last tribute to Jean-Pierre Pernaut. But Jacques Legros, who was the presenter’s joker for 20 years, was absent. The reason ? He had preferred to pay tribute to the journalist on the air at TF1, whom he marked for more than three decades.
“Thierry Thuillier [le directeur de l’information de la chaîne, ndlr] asked me what I wanted to do. I didn’t think long, explained Jacques Legros in the columns of Télé Loisirs. I felt that as Jean-Pierre’s official joker for 25 years, my duty was to do the newspaper, as I had to do when Jean-Pierre was not around. I was more useful there than at the Sainte-Clotilde church.” More than six months after the death of Jean-Pierre Pernaut, the journalist is preparing to lift the veil on their true relationship in a book to be published on October 4.. “Having been his joker for 24 years without a single editorial clash is a source of pride. But I know that he was itching to comment on my diary, writes Jacques Legros. He never spoke to me directly. The editors have always been able to spare the susceptibilities. Except once…”
Jacques Legros: “I was starting to boil inside”
According to Télé Loisirs, Jacques Legros thus evokes a day of the first confinement, in 2020. At the time, he replaced Jean-Pierre Pernaut who had orders to rest. Except that the journalist wanted to present the 1 p.m. edition at all costs. “We had therefore installed an automatic mini-studio for him at his home. But he wanted to keep the leading role and called on the team more than necessary. […] For my part, I never knew what he was going to talk about. He was reluctant to share. He wanted more and more to take control of the whole newspaper, remembered the joker of TF1, who now replaces Marie-Sophie Laccarau. […] I was starting to boil inside, until the day I burst, gathered my stuff and headed back to the parking lot and my car. Since he wanted to do the newspaper for me, let him come and do it!
“I later learned that with this mini-studio at home, it was not the Chronicle of a confined person that he was planning to do, but the entire diary, his love, his passion, his thing, his life. I came back, of course…”, adds Jacques Legros in this book, of which Télé-Loisirs has obtained an extract. To our colleagues, the journalist also summarizes his relationship with Jean-Pierre Pernaut: “We weren’t friends, but not enemies either. I would just say that our relationship was more distant and less smooth than one might have imagined”. He explains that during the first confinement, their “Relations then became strained”. “No doubt he must have felt deep inside him the end of his adventure at 1 p.m. He had hardened. He had been sick”, he adds. As a reminder, Jean-Pierre Pernaut presented his last JT on December 19, 2020, a few months later.
Jacques Legros: “He had his excesses and his weak points”
Aware that these revelations can astonish or even shock, Jacques Legros fully assumes them and even pays tribute to Jean-Pierre Pernaut. “His sense of information was unique in the world. But like any character, he had his excesses and his weak pointshe still tells our colleagues. Some would probably have preferred me to be smoother. But if I’m writing this book, at my age, it’s to tell the truth…” Despite their special relationship, Jacques Legros was upset by the death of Jean-Pierre Pernaut. And had trouble presenting the newspaper on the day of his funeral. “There was an infinite sadness. It was hard, it was hard…, he assured. I’m a man, I can’t cheat, I have my emotions. But we still had to hold the boat. It was all the complexity of this JT.”