Thierry Luthers is not the only one to have said goodbye to Grand Cactus following the last show of the season on Thursday. Freddy Tougaux has also decided to set sail. He announced it in a video posted on social networks. Not without humour, he says he has gone around the question with his “Micro-terroir”, one of the sequences well known to fans of the Grand Cactus.
He does not go alone. His sidekick Michel – in reality Antonio by his real first name – is also leaving the show.
“We didn’t say goodbye to you on the show but it was the last for us. We left on tiptoe. We wanted to say thank you for these 7 consecutive years, for your kindness during our welcome in the villages, your sympathy and your complicity, explains the comedian. We had a blast thanks to you. We had a good time.”
Under his post, many of them have expressed their dismay at the announcement of the departure of the comedian from the Grand Cactus and the end of its sequence. “After our national Thierry, it is therefore our great Freddy who stops. I hope the show will not lose quality even if Damien, Kody and Martin are still there. But Freddy’s madness will be missed. Thank you great Sir”, “I am sad, there, my David. Really. You did a great job with Antonio. I laughed a lot. Discovered unlikely places. I say thank you for all these great and quirky moments” or “With or without a yellow jersey, you are the king of the question round. It was probably time to go… but for many with too much regret”.
Collateral damage from the Poufs affair?
A year ago, Freddy Tougaux distanced himself from the Grand Cactus. More precisely, with the set where the show is filmed since it no longer appeared in the studio. He was content with his “Micro-terroir” capsule shot outdoors. Why ? “Those are the collateral damage of the big misadventure of the Poufs, did he explain to us. In January 2020, following the tense departure of Bénédicte and Sarah, it was very complicated and painful to live with. It was a big shame in the group. I myself was very close to the girls. As I can be with Jérôme. So I simply explained to him that, for me, it had become incompatible. At that time, I no longer felt like coming to the set to defend a collective humor, to show that we are all a group of friends who develop the same humor as the first four years. It was a very personal feeling that involved only me, and I expressed it frankly to Jérôme.” He then made the decision to no longer participate in the recording of the Grand Cactus in the studio, while emphasizing that this kind of disagreement is inherent in any collective project. “I have no particular or personal anger towards Jérôme, just disagreements that we talk regarding openly”, he confided to the DH at the end of the 6th season of Grand Cactus.
Freddy Tougaux (and Michel) leaves the band of Jérôme de Warzée but he promises it, “we’ll meet Again”. “The experience stops, we move on to something else”, he said. What ? Mystery. Only certainty, he will be there in Vines&Culture which sees Swiss and Belgian comedians perform in wine estates during this summer. See you from June 30 to July 1.
