Thierry Ardisson, a staple of the French tv panorama for almost 4 a long time who ruffled feathers as an iconoclastic journalist, host and producer of usually explosive speak reveals, died on Tuesday from liver most cancers. He was 76.

His spouse, Audrey Crespo Mara, who can also be a TV host and journalist, confirmed the information to French information company AFP. “Thierry handed away as he lived: a brave and free man,” she mentioned in an announcement. “His kids and mine had been united round him till his final breath.”

Nicknamed “the person in black” due to his invariable black outfits, Ardisson broke floor in France along with his first main speak present, “Tout le monde en parle,” which might air late each Saturday night time on France Télévisions Channel France 2 and have become a success within the late Nineteen Nineties. Not like many different TV hosts who usually appeared complacent, Ardisson was recognized for doing in-depth analysis on his friends to seek out blind spots, even roasting them dwell. His brash and transgressive interview type often provoked walkouts — similar to Milla Jovovich — and but, he saved luring stars like Matt Damon, Don Cheadle and Brad Pitt. When Pitt visited the speak present in 2004 to advertise “Ocean’s Twelve,” Ardisson requested if he’d visited Pigalle, the Parisian pink mild district, to which the actor replied: “I’m married!”

The late-night speak present turned so common that its viewers neared a 30% market share on the top of its recognition. In 2006, Ardisson joined the pay TV group Canal +, the place he hosted and produced “Salut les terriers,” which additionally turned iconic.

Ardisson was obsessed with cinema and tried to enterprise into moviemaking in 2008, when he attended the Cannes Movie Pageant and introduced in Selection that he had enlisted Robert Moresco and Larry Cohen to develop two movies, “10 Days in Cannes” and “Discuss Present.” However these bold initiatives stalled, regardless that he had managed to safe some companions in France.

To this present day, Ardisson’s interviews are nonetheless watched by thousands and thousands on the YouTube channel INA Arditube, which he co-created with France’s Institut Nationwide de L’audiovisuel (INA), drawing almost 4 million guests every month.

Lately, he devoted himself to “Lodge du Temps,” an progressive but short-lived present which introduced again legendary figures, together with Princess Diana, French actor Jean Gabin and singer Dalida, with using AI and work from MacGuff, the main visible results and animation firm behind “Despicable Me.” When asserting the present in a 2021 interview with Selection, Ardisson shared his aspiration for the format, saying he needed to “enlighten folks, inform them issues they don’t learn about historical past and likewise entertain them within the spirit of what public tv is supposed to be.” Whereas “Lodge du Temps” didn’t take off and stopped airing in 2023, Ardisson mentioned it was the challenge during which he had invested himself probably the most.

Ardisson wrote three books, the final of which got here out this yr, “L’homme en noir.” Weaving autobiography right into a fictive plot full of humor and French popular culture references, the ebook depicts a well-known host getting shot throughout the opening credit of his speak present and imagines his funeral being attended by everybody from Jesus Christ to Marie Antoinette, Freddy Mercury and Johnny Hallyday.

Final yr, Ardisson’s impression on French tradition was celebrated by President Emmanuel Macron, who gave him the distinguished Medal of Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres. Macron paid him tribute as we speak in an announcement co-signed by his spouse Brigitte Macron, praising him as a “nice tv persona of his century.” The assertion calls Ardisson “a voice, a silhouette, a method, a spirit, tinged with curiosity and irreverence,” including that “he welcomed his friends with a heat that would simply flip into fireplace.”

Tributes have been pouring in since information broke of his demise this morning. In a put up on X, French tradition minister Rachida Dati mentioned: “Thierry Ardisson knew learn how to seize the spirit of the occasions, decipher it with irreverence and describe it with intelligence. Together with his inimitable type, free spirit and style for transgression, he formed as we speak’s tv. He’ll eternally stay one of many best figures in French broadcasting.”

He’s survived by his spouse Crespo Mara and his three kids, Manon, Ninon and Gaston.

See extra tributes to Ardisson beneath.