“What’s left of my voice”: almost blind and deaf, Philippe Bouvard (95 years old) said his goodbyes on the airwaves

&At 95 years old, Philippe Bouvard has decided to take his bow. The host has agreed to give news of his state of health.

© Bestimage &At 95, Philippe Bouvard has decided to take his bow. The host has agreed to give news on his health.

IN BRIEF

• &At 95, Philippe Bouvard is retiring
• The host has agreed to confide in his state of health
• And the news is not exactly good

This December 6, 2024, Philippe Bouvard blows out his 95th candle. The opportunity for RTL journalists to go to his home to get news of the iconic host. “95 years old, that's a canonical age. Especially since I'm putting it a little bit more, I don't say 'I'm 95 years old', I say 'I've just entered my 96th year of age'”,he confides.

He then talks about his retirement and his health:  “I made the decision, but little by little, to retire, to say goodbye or to say farewell. But finally, it was already done. Simply, perhaps in the great moments when we will evoke events that I have lived and sometimes in which I have participated, we will hear a trickle of what remains of my voice. But it is over. Wait, 95 years old, it still allows us to retire with a heart serene!”. 

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Philippe Bouvard takes his bow

For Philippe Bouvard, there is no question of him being pathetic: “I did my job. Goodbye and thank you. Well, 'goodbye'. Farewell. I would like to tell [the listeners] that I had privileged bonds with them. So, I had privileged bonds and bonds that the voice creates and that reading does not always create. Because talking to people, that means that you give them a part of yourself, that you get closer to them. That is not always the case with a book. Except that the book, you keep it, you have it bound, you put it in a library. It's a more lasting memory”.

Happy with his career, Philippe Bouvard was able to build an audience and retain listeners. “Don't forget, and in any case I remember, that I presented the Grosses Têtes several times a day and night for 37 years. Can you imagine, 37 years! Çit was one of the successes of my life and in any case, çit was part of my daily life since I had a show during the day and a show at night. And these were not small émissions”. 

A weakened host

Concerning his health, Philippe Bouvard did not hesitate to confide in a very frank way about his health : “I'm going as one can go when one has just reached one's 96th year of age. It's a lot. “It's not without some problems and they are not problems that one might think are solved”.

The host lives like this from day to day: “I lost my sight a long time ago. I was once at the Monaco Casino. I don't know if you know the Grand Casino and the large hall. They are dominated by a large chandelier that was lit, as the Italians say, “a giorno” (as bright as day, editor's note), and suddenly, everything went dark. I went to see the eye doctor and the various opticians. They told me that it would get better. It's been five years and it's never come back. So, obviously, it's a big problem…”.