Comedy World Mourns Wahid Bouzidi: ’Jamel Comedy Club’ Star Dies at 45

"I’m so sad I can barely speak," comedian Booder, with whom he had set up a show, tells Le Parisien by message. "I was at his bedside during his stroke. I lost a friend, a brother. A part of me." Kader Aoun, Jamel Debbouze’s accomplice with whom he notably launched the Jamel Comedy Club, also expresses his sadness. "I’m sad. Wahid, he’s a little guy from my neighborhood, the Abreuvoir neighborhood in Bobigny (Seine-Saint-Denis). The kind of place where all the kids are comedians. And he was one of them. He ran a sandwich shop right across from my place." He continues: "One day, in 2006, he showed up at a rehearsal of the Jamel Comedy Club at the cultural center in Aulnay-sous-Bois (Seine-Saint-Denis). He told me: ’I have a sketch.’ I told him: ’Well, go ahead, do it.’ And that’s how it started. He must have been 26 years old. I didn’t even know he was doing stand-up."

Dédo, who was part of the Jamel Comedy Club, remembers the man who joined a troupe in Gagny (Seine-Saint-Denis) before being spotted by Kader Aoun and pushed by Jamel Debbouze, who nicknamed him "the extraterrestrial." "At that time, we had done a show at the Casino de Paris and Jamel had arrived on stage sitting on Wahid’s shoulder," he recalls emotionally. "He was deeply kind, always caring about you rather than himself. He laughed at his welcoming physique as we said, but he was very shy about the rest. When we played in the 93, I remember that his family, his brothers, came to see him every time and we felt a very close-knit clan that protected him." Yacine Belhousse, who was present at the same time in the troupe, is also moved to learn of Wahid’s death. "His departure touches and sincerely saddens me," writes the comedian. "During the entire Jamel Comedy Club period that we shared, he left me a luminous and benevolent memory - he was a very generous, gentle person with immense talent."

Gil Alma, the actor from "Nos chers voisins" and "César Wagner", paid tribute to "a guy of gold. A true gentleman, full of simplicity and kindness." And he continues: "I had shot with him, in Guadeloupe a season of ’Tongs et paréo’, a short-lived program on M6 in 2008. He was starting out. He had done stage, but he wasn’t very used to the camera yet. He had a lot of doubt. Because the short format is very demanding. He was very anxious before the shoot, which he approached with a lot of humility. And when I saw him again later at the Appolo Théâtre, he seemed happy. His play with Booder and Paul Seré was doing well, it was full."