“My friends call me the nympho of the pen because I say yes to everything,” he jokes. It’s a fact: Philippe Caverivière is everywhere. Every morning, at the microphone of RTL, he delivers a caustic chronicle of which a shortened version is then broadcast on M6, around 1:20 p.m. He continues to put his pen to the service of Nicolas Canteloup for the C Canteloup TF1 daily. And, as of Saturday, he will officiate in What an era!the new Saturday evening talk show on France 2 presented by Léa Salamé.
“The rhythm will be intense this year”, fears the comedian who fills his diary to this point because he is “afraid that it will only last a while”. The young fifty-something however has something to reassure himself: during the summer transfer window, his phone did not stop ringing. Among all the proposals, he chose to remain faithful to the second channel. “Because the public had started to know me on this niche”, justifies the one who has become a familiar face to viewers thanks to We are live where he has served for the past two seasons.
“I owe Laurent Ruquier for having opened the doors of TV to me,” he admits. Also, Philippe Caverivière was “terrified” at the idea of announcing that he was staying on the second part of the evening of Saturdays of France 2 that the host had just left. “For twenty days, I found an excuse every day not to call him,” he admits. And then, on July 20, I ended up giving him a call. Laurent was very elegant, he told me to fly on my own, that he was happy for me. High class. »
“I am forgiven because I have a GO head and ball collars”
Léa Salamé claims to have established a great “complicity” with Philippe Caverivière in recent months. “My priority was to keep him. He literally exploded last year during the presidential election, whether on RTL or on France 2. Today, he is one of those who go the furthest. We think: “He is not going to make this valve, he is not going to dare.” And there he goes,” greets the journalist.
“There is something human and tender in the wickedness, believes the person concerned. They forgive me because I have a head of GO [gentil organisateur] and ball necklaces. “A judgment on appearances which is not off the mark: the comedian has worked for a long time at Club Med. “Over there, they let you go on stage even when you’re bad and you become a little less bad. We touch the show a little and we say to ourselves that it’s great, an audience that laughs, ”he explains.
Philippe Caverivière does not embellish his memories. “I found myself in the worst Club Med in the world: I wanted to go to the West Indies and I landed in Dieulefit (Drôme). It was an Ehpad, the people were very old. At the time, he was head of land sports – “When people are over 80, we don’t do triathlons, we’re more on pétanque” – and there he made a decisive encounter, that of Nicolas Canteloup. “He was GO, I watched him on stage and I wrote a little for him,” he summarizes.
“The only responsibility in humor is to be funny”
It is he who, nine years later, will take off his artistic career. In 2002, while his CV had meanwhile been supplemented by a bad experience in real estate – “I sank an agency” – and another in catering – “I sank a restaurant” – he sees Nicolas Canteloup on television. “I wrote back to him. He welcomed me generously. First on Rire et chansons, then on Europe 1 from 2005 to 2020. We stopped on a unilateral decision by Vincent Bolloré. Then Thomas Sotto came to get me for RTL. »
Going from backstage to in front of the cameras, Philippe Caverivière has made a name for himself in humor, synonymous with squeaky valves, vitriolic jokes, sarcastic arrows. Is there one he regrets? He reflected a little: “Once, Nicolas Canteloup called me to tell me of Abbé Pierre’s death. I replied: “Fuck AIDS”. He said “Great, I’m doing it in [Fabien] Barthez”. I tried to dissuade him. He did it on the microphone, imitating Barthez… There were big laughs anyway, but my mother yelled at me. “
He thinks that “the only responsibility” when it comes to humor, “is to be funny”. He says that, recently, he asked himself the question of evoking in a chronicle the Nice attack – whose trial is currently being held in Paris. “I decided not to talk about it. I was too emotional, I didn’t have the distance to try to laugh. Too fresh, too violent. The kids, all that…”
“Making humor is just taking some distance from misfortune”
“A valve is a bet. You never know if it’s going to be funny, ”he continues. Especially when the main source of inspiration is current events. “There are few funny facts. I try to step aside and not be in the dark. This morning [le 13 septembre, jour de notre entretien], I did Line Renaud dying during the interview, but I did it with bullshit and a lot of humanity. Life is nasty, humor is just taking some distance from misfortune. »
He does this knowingly. His vocation as an entertainer dates back to his 4 years. “I lost my sister Sophie to cancer. I thought it was good to make my mother laugh. It was a way for me to react to a heavy atmosphere at home, ”he confides. This is also the reason for his involvement alongside the Leo association which supports sick children and raises funds for research on pediatric cancers. “It allows me to resume a lost fight, to not have lost it completely. With my little notoriety, I can get in touch with lots of artists. He gives the example of Louane who “sent a very nice video to a little one”, of Christophe Maé who “spent a moment in Facetime with a kid”, of Kendji Girac who responds to all requests in the half- daytime.
“He stings where it burns, but we know he’s a good guy”
He scrolls through pictures of children and teenagers on his phone. We see happy scenes of boat trips, dinners on the terrace, sunny games. He tells us the stories that these smiles do not tell: this little one who is now in remission, this boy who is no longer there, this other who is living his dream, standing behind the turntables of a DJ while each of his steps are a pain…
“Despite their illness, these kids are happy. They keep smiling in the biggest fight ever. It’s polite to be gay. That’s why, when I arrive at RTL every morning, I make it a point to have the potato, ”he says. Christophe Dechavanne, who is part of the Quelle epoque! and only recently met him calling him a “benevolent man”. “He is in the verbal violence of the subject, he stings where it burns, but we know that he is a good guy. »
Upon his arrival on RTL, Philippe Caverivière received an avalanche of negative comments. “People thought my humor was a little spicy, then they saw that I was slapping all over the place and maybe I was more complex than they thought. Even at Ruquier’s the public got used to it, and ended up saying to themselves “Here’s the other idiot, but he’s nice”. »