Henri, 58 years-old, a retired former lieutenant colonel in the French army from Montberon, not far from Toulouse, in the department of Haute-Garonne, was a contestant on Qui veut gagner des millions? on 13 July 2006.
Henri gained viral notoriety worldwide when, after the audience gave him the wrong answer, he incorrectly answered his 3.000 € question that many believe was easy. He left with only 1.500 €.
For some odd reason, Henri did not know the answer to this question, so he decided to Ask the Audience, and when the results came out, 42% of the audience said A: The Moon; 56% said B: The Sun, and 2% said C: Mars.
Henri briefly considers using the 50:50 lifeline, but ultimately decides against it, and goes for B: The Sun as his final answer.
His wife, who was in the audience, knew that his answer was wrong, and that the right answer was The Moon, and when the right answer was revealed to be The Moon, a significant number of audience members gasped in shock at the right answer.
The host, Jean-Pierre Foucault, told Henri that had he used the 50:50, he might have still ended up with the Sun and the Moon, and that the audience was really divided, and that he did not want to influence his decision, but that nonetheless, he still won 1.500 €.
Total des Gains: 1.500 €
Trivia[]
It has been speculated that some members of the audience gave the wrong answer intentionally, similar to the Russian version of the show, which is notorious for the audience intentionally giving contestants the wrong answers on purpose; however, when the right answer was revealed, a noticeable, audible gasp of shock can be heard if the viewer listens closely.
However, a small but audible laugh can be heard once Henri locks in B as his final answer.
This incident, along with all of the numerous incidents of unlucky contestants on the U.S. version winning nothing after giving a wrong answer to one of the first 5 questions, may have inspired the "dumbest contestant ever" hoax, in which a fictional contestant named Kathy Evans failed to properly answer a simple $100 question after using up all three of her lifelines, because she was too skeptical of the assistance that was given (in fiction, stupidity is sometimes unrealistically exaggerated). According to the screenshot, it depicts her answering that elephants are larger than the Moon; the screenshot was actually a modified screenshot taken from ukgameshows.com, depicting UK contestant Fiona Wheeler properly answering her £32,000 question. She was notable for stating that she wanted to bathe in a bath filled with chocolate, something she later actually did in a photo shoot. In real life, there were two $0 winners on the U.S. version named Cathy Donley and Kathy Hempel, who both flunked out on the $1,000 question (question 5), not the $100 question (question 1).
A few months later, on 25 December 2006, during the first episode of the winter 2006 session, a candidate named Sandra herself had the right to a question of the same value and unfortunately, she herself used the Ask the Audience lifeline, and the audience gave the wrong answer, she followed the audience, and she left with only 1.500 €.
