Gilbert Rozon

Did You Know?

• Rozon was the eldest of seven children and worked as a paperboy, gravedigger, salesman, and printer before founding festivals.
• He studied law at the Université de Montréal and graduated.
• He served as impresario for Charles Trenet until Trenet's death.

Career

In 1980, Rozon founded the La Grande Virée festival in Lachute, which attracted over 60,000 spectators in its first year and more than 80,000 in 1981. For its third year, he moved the festival to the Pointe-aux-Trembles neighbourhood in Montreal, where it failed. Despite this failure, he borrowed over C$1 million to launch the Just for Laughs festival in 1982, based in Montreal and later spreading to Toronto, Chicago, Nantes and Paris. Rozon served as the impresario of Charles Trenet until his death and produced shows for numerous comedians and performers including Laurent Ruquier, Franck Dubosc, Dieudonné, Florence Foresti, Arturo Brachetti, Stéphane Rousseau, Jean-Marc Parent, Jean-Luc Lemoine, Rachid Badouri, André Sauvé, and Christophe Alévêque. Just for Laughs represents over 75 artists and produces over 200 hours of television broadcast in over 150 countries each year. After 25 years at the helm, Rozon handed day-to-day leadership to Alain Cousineau, with whom he had founded the festival in 1983, but remained chairman and CEO. From 2006 until his firing in 2017, he was a judge on La France a un incroyable talent.

Sexual assault allegations

Gilbert Rozon’s legal history began in 1998, when he pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a 19-year-old woman. The Quebec Superior Court gave him an unconditional discharge, reasoning that a criminal record would interfere with his international work travel. A separate charge of unlawfully confining a 31-year-old woman was dropped by police due to insufficient evidence. Women’s groups publicly condemned the sentence as too soft. In October 2017, amid multiple sexual misconduct allegations, Rozon stepped down as president of Just for Laughs and as vice-president of the Montreal Metropolitan Board of Trade. After three years of trials, he was acquitted of all charges in December 2020. He still faces civil lawsuits from six women seeking over $9 million in damages. On March 31, 2026, a court ordered him to pay $880,000 to eight of the nine women who had accused him of sexual misconduct.