“For years I
've been
told
stop smoking, quit smoking
. I smoked a lot. And then, I was discovered a little disease that happens to people who smoke. I found myself a little lung cancer. This is the first time that I have spoken about it ”, confides Jean-Pierre Pernaut in front of the camera, in“ the Life after ”, a long documentary that we watched in preview before its broadcast on Thursday, December 9 on C8. at 9:15 p.m. The one who had already been operated on for prostate cancer in 2018 continues: “When I said I had prostate cancer, people said to me:
Ah, you too?
And when I said I had lung cancer:
Oh shit
. "
At his side, his wife, Nathalie Marquay-Pernaut: “He fights, he's a fighter.
He has no choice with me!
The former presenter of 13 hours of TF1 learned the bad news in the spring.
In April, he first undergoes a CT scan because he has "bronchitis that does not pass".
The verdict falls the following days following a battery of examinations: cancer of the right lung.
The first advice is severe: impossible to operate.
The second, at the Georges-Pompidou European Hospital, is more optimistic.
Surgery is therefore scheduled for July 5, discreetly.
To cover things up and not "be bothered by the paparazzi", the former Miss France posts vacation photos on social networks.
Fifty years of smoking
The only condition before the operation is to stop smoking, which he has been smoking for fifty years. “The day I quit, I didn't notice it,” he says. I haven't smoked a cigarette since July 5th. I did not put a patch. I don't miss tobacco. I should have stopped longer ago. It is a question of will. I was afraid of breathing badly, of coughing, of gaining weight. Well, I gained three kilos in three months. I promise I'll go to the gym. "
The day of the operation, JPP claims to have been "a little scared" before spending five hours in the operating room.
"We spread the ribs, we open the lungs, we take the lobe where there is the tumor, we analyze if it has exceeded, if there are metastases ..." he relates for C8.
He woke up three days later "in the coaltar", in intensive care.
But the tumor had disappeared on the right.
He combines work and radiotherapy
Except that in August, it's the turn of the left lung. Doctors detect a "bigger, 3.5cm" tumor. Another operation is not possible. “It would be too heavy for my health,” says the 71-year-old presenter. For several weeks, he has been undergoing radiotherapy, while continuing his activities, notably “Jean-Pierre & vous”, his weekly program on LCI. “We will see the results in 2022,” he smiles. I'm not going to screw up on vacation, like this summer. There, I will spend family celebrations in the sun. And if that doesn't work, we'll do other stuff. You have to see life on the bright side. "
At TF 1, they were little in the know.
"New cancer?
Truly ?
»Laments a former collaborator of the JT, whom we had polled three days earlier.
“I knew there was something new, but he wasn't really talking about it,” says an on-air personality.
In a video posted on Twitter Monday evening, Pernaut, who spoke after leaks in the press, assures us that “you should not be afraid of cancer”.
His wife, who conquered cancer years earlier, was on the set of “Touche pas à mon poste” on Monday evening.
Why engage in a documentary?
"To give a rant," she replies.
Because of the Covid, we no longer dare to go to the hospital to be tested.
And damn it, go take some exams.
Cancer shouldn't be taboo.
"
