For many years, Jacques Legros has been the faithful prankster of Jean-Pierre Pernaut on tf1 news. As soon as the summer holidays arrived, the journalist took the reins of the 1:00 p.m. newspaper. A status that has always suited her and thanks to which she was able to dedicate herself to other projects. It is also because of a new book that the journalist is in the news today. In fact, she decided to take stock of her long career with Behind the screen: 40 years in the heart of the media, which will be published on October 5 by Éditions du Rocher. And through its pages, Jacques Legros was forced to evoke Jean-Pierre Pernaut, who died last March.
It is on this occasion that we learn that not everything has been rosy between these two information experts. “Having been his prankster for 24 years without a single editorial disagreement is a source of pride. But I know that I was anxious to comment on my diary. He never spoke to me directly. Publishers have always known how to avoid susceptibilities. Except once…“, writes Jacques Legros in an extract that entertainment television was able to obtain.
It was in 2020, during the first confinement, Jean-Pierre Pernaut’s prankster then almost ended up exploding. “Therefore, we had installed an automatic mini-studio in his house. But he wanted to maintain the leading role and asked the team for more than was 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 entire newspaper. (…) I was starting to boil inside, until one day I sneaked out, gathered my stuff, and started back to the parking lot. and my car Since he wanted to do the newspaper for me, let him come and do it! (…) I found out later that with this mini-study at home, it was not the Chronicle of a prisoner what he planned to do, but the whole newspaper, his love, his passion, his thing, his life. I’m back of course…“, he recalls in his book.
We weren’t friends, but we weren’t enemies either.
A brief chapter that does not paint the most flattering portrait of the popular JPP. But Jacques Legros fully assumes. “We weren’t friends, but we weren’t enemies either. I would only say that our relationship was more distant and less fluid than one could have imagined. His presence was rarely heavy. Except at the end, at the time of confinement. Our relationship then became strained. No doubt he must have felt deep inside himself the end of his adventure at 1 pm He had hardened. he had been ill“, he explained after being contacted by our colleagues.
Jacques Legros imagines that his statements could be taken badly by the faithful of the late journalist but, through his work, he claims to have simply wanted “tell the truth“.”His sense of information was unique in the world. But like every character, he had his excesses and his weak points. Some probably would have preferred it to be softer…“, he acknowledged.