Noël Godin Timeline

Noël Godin 15

1968 Godin invents Georges Le Gloupier A fictional film director, for fake reviews of films that did not exist He wrote that Le Gloupier had thrown a pie at Robert Bresson, then that Duras had avenged him. The joke became the method.
1968 The first attack A pot emptied over a reactionary professor at Liège Marcel De Corte, chosen for his politics. The pie came a year later.
1969 Marguerite Duras is the first to be pied At Louvain, presenting her film Détruire, dit-elle The literary hoax became a real custard pie, and Godin had found what he would do for the next 57 years.
1976 Marco Ferreri at Cannes The festival becomes a regular hunting ground Godin had been a film critic. He generally pied people he had once admired.
1985 – 2015 Bernard-Henri Lévy, for the first of eight times In Liège - and again, on and off, until 2015 The philosopher fought back while Godin lay on the ground going gloup gloup. Coluche mocked him for it.
1985 Jean-Luc Godard at Cannes Godard refused to press charges He called it an homage to silent cinema, which Godin thought was the correct response.
1987 The wrong man is pied Michel Sardou was the target - the Belgian minister Edouard Poullet got the pie One of the few operations that went wrong, and the only one to hit an obscure politician by accident.
1989 Anthologie de la subversion carabinée Godin's anthology of insurrection and mischief He was a serious archivist of other people's pranks as well as the author of his own.
1993 Patrick Bruel at the Hotel Amigo Eight accomplices, all dressed as Georges le Gloupier They got past security while Bruel was signing autographs. The slogan that day was about an awful singing louse.
1998 The International Patisserie Brigade Copycat pie squads appear across the world Godin funded operations by selling the film and photographs to the media.
1998 Bill Gates is pied in Brussels 14:30, outside the Concert Noble, on an official visit Entartons, entartons le polluant pognon. The footage went round the world within hours.
1999 Brussels high society is pied en masse A new tactic: the crowd rather than the individual Chevènement was the only victim ever to win damages against him.
2005 Entartons, entartons les pompeux cornichons! His account of a life spent throwing pies Pompous gherkins, in his phrase, were the only people he targeted.
2023 Michael O'Leary of Ryanair One of the last operations, at 78 He avoided Belgian targets on the grounds that nobody would notice, and turned down paid commissions.
2026 Noël Godin dies Aged 80, in Brussels He lived in a modest house in the north of the city with five cats and his wife, the actress Sylvie Van Hiel.