Jean-Marie Bigard was born on May 17, 1954 in the town of Charmont-sous-Barbuise near Troyes in the department of Aube. Fourth and last child of the siblings, he comes from a family of modest origins. His father, a pork butcher, had to give up his trade because of health problems and his mother worked for a subcontractor in the automobile industry.
During his childhood, Jean-Marie Bigard could not stand the constraints and confinement of school, so much so that during his schooling, he repeated his fourth class before being boarded in the private college in the town of Mesnil-Saint-Loup. His parents sacrificed themselves financially to pay for the private establishment, but the comedian was quickly reoriented towards training in general mechanics at the age of 16.
After finishing his training at the technical school, Jean-Marie Bigard does not wish to follow the same path as his mother and his two sisters to “keep up the pace” at the factory and “work, work, depriving himself of everything”, he said in his autobiography entitled Laugh so as not to die. He therefore decides “not to jerk off to anything”, and initially lives off odd jobs. He was first a gas station attendant, then a bartender in a café in downtown Troyes before being accepted by the Center for Popular Education and Sport to become a substitute assistant teacher in handball, a sport he has practiced with ease since his childhood.
“The dunce who fell into mechanics through idleness, became a bartender by accident, converted to teaching. (…) Investing a lot and constantly enthusiastic, he nevertheless sees after almost three years that the kids end up rolling him, and that they pout when they see him coming”, he confided in his autobiography Laugh so as not to die.
If comedian Jean-Marie Bigard initially works as a bartender in downtown Troyes, it is primarily to be able to financially relieve his mother who is seriously ill.
But at the age of 20, the latter died of pancreatic cancer. Another tragedy occurs a year after the disappearance of his mother: the assassination of his father in his house with a knife. The latter was killed by a lumberjack, a former companion of the woman who had shared his life for some time. After this tragedy, Jean-Marie Bigard only regained his joie de vivre thanks to the antidepressants he took and his role as a clown behind his bar: “Pastis is the same everywhere, the only thing that changes is is the face of the guy who serves it to you”, he said in his autobiography. This ability to make people laugh despite the dramas that have occurred in his life is the only remedy for him not to collapse. After two and a half years as a bartender, Jean-Marie Bigard left his job to start training as a handball coach.
Invited on the show Seven to Eight on September 6, 2020, the star confided in emotion about the disappearance of her two parents. “I think about it all the time. My mother only had ridiculous dresses, poor thing (…) Curtains what!”, he explained and added: “” I was a multi-millionaire and I have never been able to shower her with gifts. And my father would have known me at the time of my glory, he would have been very proud I believe. He would have cried like I cry all the time.”
Comedian Jean-Marie Bigard is revealed to the general public in the program La Classe broadcast on FR3. In the process, he played his first successful show You said Bigard? in 1988 at the Semicolon and also touches on the song by interpreting saucy and parodic texts. He notably released the title Un poil de cul sur ma soap in 1992.
From the 1990s onwards, he headlined numerous comedy shows such as Oh Ben Oui!, Le nouveau Bigard, Bigard Intégral and 100% Tout Neuf. The star also became an actor in a dozen films including Claude Zidi’s Box, Laurent Baffie’s Les Clefs de car or more recently in Each one his life, released in 2017.
On the heart side, Jean-Marie Bigard was married to a dancer named Claudia in the early 90s. Divorced in 2009, the star found love in the arms of actress Lola Marois with whom he had twins in November 2012.
With his saucy humor, Jean-Marie Bigard has often aroused controversy. Invited in 2010 on Patrick Sébastien’s program Les Années Bonheur, the comedian was to do his sketch entitled Le slackening of sluts. Before going on stage, Patrick Sébastien wanted to tell him that he had received a letter from the legal affairs department of the channel to censor the star. Patrick Sébastien then had two options: either delete the sketch or broadcast it after 10 p.m. with a sign “forbidden at least 12 years old”. The host decided to choose the second option.
Asked at the microphone of Europe 1, Jean-Marie Bigard spoke about this censorship: “I am proud to be the first French comedian to be banned for children under 12, for a sketch which itself has 12 year.
More recently, Jean-Marie Bigard made people talk about him on the program Touche pas à mon poste in February 2019. After a joke about the rape of a woman, the CSA (Higher Audiovisual Council) received many complaints from viewers. Following his joke, the comedian announced on Twitter the cancellation of his tour. : “I am fired. (…) “I am destroyed, my dear friends”, he explains. “I just took a crowbar hit on the head. I was supposed to do the Var-matin tour this summer. 49 dates. It was my whole summer of work. And I just learned, three quarters ago hour that I am fired”, he confided on his Twitter account.
From his beginnings in the 1980s to today, Jean-Marie Bigard can boast of having gained notoriety. A success that allowed him to have an incredible fortune thanks to his activities as a comedian. Asked by Jordan Deluxe on his show Chez Jordan, the husband of actress Lola Marois opened up about his wealth.
“I was and I am much less, it must be admitted,” explains the sixty-year-old. “I tend to be a sieve a bit, he even assures before admitting. “I squandered all the fortune I earned for others, to do good here and there. “. Renowned for his frankness and generosity, Jean-Marie Bigard did not hesitate to detail his successful recipes.
Between his successful shows and tours, not to mention the sale of DVDs estimated at eight million copies, Jean-Marie Bigard’s fortune would reach crazy sums. “I released my show at the end of November and at the end of December, I had sold 500,000 DVDs. I had seven euros on each DVD. And, then, 500,000 DVDs the rest of the year. That means that each show, I earned up to 7 million euros over the year”, specified the former resident of the Big heads on RTL. Several months after his eviction, the father of the family lifted the veil on his remuneration as a columnist. “It was about 600 euros per show. If you go twice a week, that’s 1,200. And, over four weeks, that’s 4,000 euros”. What allow the actor to still have happy days with his wife and their children.
