Like Gérard Depardieu or Gérard Vivès, host and humorist Yves Lecoq is a true enthusiast of castles and other old buildings. A passion that has pushed him many times to buy old houses in order to restore them. “My grandmother being an antique dealer, she was the one who passed on this passion to me,” he told Le Zéphyrmag in 2017 and added: “It all happened in Picardy. One day, I I had enough money to buy my first property and I took the plunge (…) For me, the goal was to work as a restorer. I didn’t necessarily want to systematically live in the properties I was acquisition. But I wanted to complete their restoration”.
At the end of the 1970s, he became the proud owner of the Château d’Hédauville before selling it to buy the Château de Suzanne in 1981. In 1995, the animator bought the castle of Villiers-le-Bâcle, located in Essonne. This enthusiast of large buildings then became the owner of the Château de Chambes in Charente in 2008 before acquiring the Château de Chalais in 2011. A castle “in danger” as the site asserted. For the French star, it was an extraordinary challenge. “It was probably unreasonable,” he said. He would also be the owner of the Château de Maisonseule.
According to our colleagues from Public, Yves Lecoq, who would be “ruined”, should have sold off his castle in Villiers-le-Bâcle. While the host “hoped to pocket 18 million euros”, the building would have been sold for the sum of 9 million euros to Xaviel Niel, founder of the company Free.
In an interview with Charente Libre on November 21, 2022, the comedian confided that he must now sell his castle of Châlais, because he is no longer able to assume the charges. “I wanted to do a disinterested act. The proof, this purchase and the restoration have half ruined me, but I have no regrets,” he told the daily. Selling price of the building? 3.1 million euros! However, his passion for castles cost him a lot of money…
In 2020, host Yves Lecoq spoke to Non Stop People about his finances as well as the difficulty of owning castles. “Right now it’s not terrible. But it’ll come back. When you’re shut down overnight like that, there are things that keep falling. I don’t have wealth taxes so much I am indebted by my castles”, he declared and added: “I have expenses for the maintenance of these castles, which continue to turn, and I no longer have the income. So, it is necessary to time to sell stuff so I can pay it all back. I’ve sold two already. But it’s not easy to sell, especially right now because people don’t want to bother dealing with that kind of stuff anymore, he added. Me, it was my pleasure.”
In an interview with Charente Libre, the one who pocketed 35,000 to 40,000 euros per month thanks to his programs (Les Guignols de l’info and Grands du rire), found himself in difficulty quickly: “When Canal and France 3 stop overnight and you end up with zero income, it becomes difficult. It is not because you have four castles that you are a billionaire”, he explained.
Several years later, Yves Lecoq took stock of his finances on the set of TPMP People. Invited this last weekend of May in the show on C8, the comedian made new revelations. “I still have debts,” he said on television, referring to the renovations of his castles.
“As I earned a good living with everything I did, everything went through the works. But I didn’t have a penny aside. I could have put 500 balls aside anyway,” added the one who also received financial assistance from host Bernard Montiel. If the comedian and humorist admits that all this money “went there”, his taxes “were absorbed by historical monuments, by the work I was doing”.
Without filter by evoking his debts to be repaid, the septuagenarian assures that he only has two castles left. “I still have debts because I sold everything at a low price,” he explains. “In 24 hours, I had to find the money”. Before adding. “I had debts that weren’t huge. When I sold something, I always had less than expected so I sold everything at a discount. It’s not huge sums, but to be quiet, I have to sell the last”.
From 1988 to 2018, Yves Lecoq was one of the emblematic voices of the program Les Guignols de l’info thanks to his talents as an imitator. By doubling the puppets of Patrick Poivre d’Arvor or Jacques Chirac, he will become one of the stars of the program. From 2005 to 2019, the comedian was also at the head of the program Les Grands du rire on France 3 before the program was replaced by Samedi d’en rire, presented by Jean-Luc Lemoine.
In 2019, Yves Lecoq had created the surprise by participating in the musical program Mask Singer on TF1. Since then, the famous septuagenarian has been increasingly rare in the media. Since his last screen role in an episode of the fictional Captain Marleau, what is he doing now?
“I suddenly stopped the TV […] outside overnight. I stopped the show because of the covid, and I stopped Canal “. However, the famous artist does not intend to retire, because he is teeming with projects. “I have just redone a kind of showcase in my village. I will send it to all the producers who claim my presence on stage and I will go back to the gala”, he assured in the show.