In 2020, after various sources revealed improbability in his biography, he was forced to admit that he lied about several elements of his past that credited his purported expertise.

In 1990, he appeared in Group Portrait 127: Le jury du Prix Très Spécial of the Cinématon by Gérard Courant [fr].

[15] In 1999, he was a member of the feature films jury at the 1999 Fantastic'Arts in Gérardmer, France, alongside singer Johnny Hallyday and American actor Robert Englund.

[14] He claimed to have moved to the United States in the early 1970s, where he allegedly found his then-wife Eileen murdered, raped and mutilated by a serial killer in 1976 in Los Angeles.

In 2020, he informed a Paris Match reporter that his oft-repeated claim that a serial killer had murdered his wife was fabricated; he apologized to his readers for the deception.

[citation needed] In April 2020, the site Arrêt sur images [fr] noted inconsistencies in Bourgoin's biography and, in turn, expressed doubts about its veracity.

He also claims that Bourgoin appropriated the stories of South African police officers Micki Pistorius and Derick Norsworthy and FBI agent John E.