Guy Laliberte Biography

Guy Laliberte Bio

Guy Laliberte
Born: September 2, 1959
Lived and Raised: Quebec City, Quebec
Initial Jobs: According Player and Harmonica with the folk music group: La Gueule du Loup. This introduced him to street performance. He toured Europe as folk musician, and busker and fire breathing artist. He returned home to Canada sometime in 1979. He joined stilt walking troupe shortly after his return.
1982 saw the first Cirque developed in part by Laliberte. In 1983 he received 1.5 million in grant money from Canadian government. The first Cirque Du Soleil was born of that grant money. Cirque Du Soleil preformed in Canada alone until 1987 at the LA Arts Festival. From there, Cirque Du Soleil grew to be a massive success.
While learning to develop the Cirque into the mega success it has become, Guy also found he enjoyed playing poker. He honed his skill whenever the opportunity presented itself. His poker prowess paid off when he competed in the World Poker Tour in 2007, finishing number four and cashing in his biggest payout to date – 626, 220 dollars at Las Veges’ Bellagio hotel. Since then his poker success has pushed him further into the spotlight. The Game Show Network hosted a network series called High Stakes Poker, where the contestants bring 1million dollars and play for cold hard cash. Guy Laliberte received his invitation for Season 4, where he showed well against some other major players. During the same year, Poker After Dark also invited him to play.

Since these great plays his poker success has been jaunted a bit. His online poker room of choice is Full Tilt Poker. This has yielded him very modest success, and unfortunately far more losses. According to stat’s he’s lost almost 20 million dollars in 2007. A drop in the bucket for this Montreal billionaire, but it was followed up by another 10 million dollars in loss in 2008. Hopefully his poker prowess will prove to be more astute in 2009, as he’s going to need the poker face in his personal life as well.
His personal life has been unique and enjoyable. He became a millionaire in his 20’s, which has yielded a life of great and lavish enjoyments. In 1991 he went on vacation to Rio de Jenerio in Brazil where he met a beautiful young woman who was the tender age of 17. Rizia Moneria was attending university at the time she met Guy, and was working as a model. Against her father’s wishes, he swept her off her feet and brought her home with him to Canada. Over the next ten years they became common law spouses and are also parent to three children. When she was 27 they split, and she moved into a home he purchased for her and their children. At some point thereafter he met and dated model /actress Naomi Campbell. Today he is involved with model Claudia Barilla, of whom very little is known. He does have 2 children with Claudia, both of whom were in gestation while a new Cirque Du Soliel was released.

In 2007 Guy announced the formation of his One Drop Foundation. A charitable foundation begun to help at risk youth develop a new sense of drive and self confidence. It utilizes Cirque skills and talents to develop their personal goals and improve confidence, which will in turn help them to look to a new option for their lives.
Today he is locked in a constitutional dispute with Rizia over spousal support. In Canada the common law marriage is not viewed the same as traditional marriage. A common law marriage thus spousal support is not required to be paid. Rizia is challenging that case in the Quebec Superior court. It is her goal to obtain a 50 million dollar lump sum plus and additional 56k a month to maintain her lifestyle as she had it while they were married for 10 years.