“They didn’t laugh, they were all on their phones, it pissed me off. “After crossing the border and then passing the mountains of garbage cans that perch the Parisian sidewalks on leaving the France Inter studios, Fanny Ruwet takes stock of her weekly column. Like every Wednesday, she tried to make Nagui and her columnists laugh. The original band on France Inter after having spent the hour and a half in the Thalys which separates Paris from Brussels.
For nearly two years, the 28-year-old comedian has been living back and forth between capitals. But there is no question of turning her back on Brussels, where she has been living a “much more chill” life since she moved there at 18. Because Paris “smells too much of pee” and would also oppress it with “far too many opportunities”.
Yet it is a French literary publishing house that reaches out to her again as she prepares to unveil Of course the fish are cold, his first novel published by Iconoclast. Radio host then podcaster who became a comedian before trying out an experience as a director and then an author. Fanny Ruwet seems to be continuing her exploration of the map of possibilities available to her.
“BonZour the Zens”
Eyes reddened by the pixelated screen of her old computer, little Fanny, 12, escapes from a lonely childhood by accumulating Skyblogs where she builds different universes and exchanges with her 2.0 friends. When her mother invites her out of their house to meet other children her age, she replies: “No, I don’t want to, I have MSN. “I was talking about bands that I liked. I already had this public relations thing where I liked to give visibility to things that I liked, ”she rewinds to 20 minutes. A way to ward off the social anxiety caused by the Dutroux trial that runs through his childhood memories. “Even today, I don’t pass by a car with its doors open. »
Born in the deep Belgian countryside, halfway between the cities of Liège and Namur, “I was not wanted at all, I was totally an accident”, she says stashed behind her glasses. Her mother was nineteen when she was born. This generational proximity still favors the “very fusional” relationship between the two women today. “If I wanted children I would have liked to have had them young. I think it’s so nice to have a mother who is half your friend. »
From her childhood, Fanny Ruwet remembers days when “nothing was happening” and where everything had to be created. It is first on the beginnings of the web that she draws her refuge as she sees fit. “I had a skyblog where I lisped in writing,” she laughs a decade later. I wrote like: “BonZour les Zens” and I put the “z” in pink, adolescence what…” And all these encounters that this infinite universe made possible.
Merry fuck
In his room, the posters that decorate the walls betray his dream of becoming a hybrid character. Halfway between the singer Lorie, whose clips she scrutinizes to find out the number of dancers she will have to hire – “six is ideal” – and the Pokémon trainer Sacha de Bourg Palette. “There was also an A4 poster of David Charvet on which I practiced kissing and then next to that, you had a huge poster of the Anderlecht football team on the door”, she recalls. in his memory.
Why choose when all these things can coexist? From this childhood, Fanny Ruwet still has the desire to be everywhere at once, to try everything without putting up barriers. “A joyful mess, 100% like my personality today”, summarizes the Brussels woman again.
Like this day in 2018 when, she slams the door of her job as a press officer despite five years of study. “I slammed everything and spent a few weeks at home with the curtains closed listening to Julien Baker. I said to myself: “OK, it’s not okay”. »
“Paying for an apartment in jokes”
To ward off fate, as if out of spite, she tries a few jokes on the stage of the Kings of Comedy Club, in Brussels. She evokes a part of ego that pushes her to jump into the water to try something new.
“The first time, it worked without being incredible and then one thing leading to another I did a lot of open scenes. After a year, it paid my rent, I was able to stop my food jobs and I said to myself: “Paying for an apartment in jokes, how stylish”. “His career as a comedian is launched, his first show will follow until leading him among the authors of the series Funnydirected by Fanny Herrero for Netflix.
At the same time, Fanny Ruwet buries Cuistaxare music podcast and launches people who doubt, where she meets personalities who explain to her “how they create stuff”. Even today, these conversations are a remnant of the thoughts and desires that run through her. “I project my current insecurities onto people and see what they do with them. It’s totally interested as a project, ”she laughs.
“Go scratch what bothers”
His journey is guided by an insatiable desire to create. She now knows the privilege she has of having so much ear to listen when an idea comes to her mind. “When I had the idea for this novel, inspired by a story that really happened to me, the publishing house said to me: ‘Go ahead, we’ll publish it.’ It’s quite simple and people trust me, I’m lucky. »
To write, she spent two summers with the Belgian author Adeline Dieudonné to write and “try to steal her genius”. “I put a lot of myself into it. This book evokes a lot of subjects that are a little shameful, I try to go scratch what bothers, ”she proudly assures.
Her failing psychological health is at the heart of everything she does. “Two or three days a month, I’m at the bottom of your hole, I stay in bed and I don’t want anything,” she confesses. Medication helps him move on. “I’ve learned to accept that meds aren’t Satan. »
“I don’t celebrate birthdays”
His humor, his ideas but also his book are crossed by his traumas. “With my mother, we often say that in our family you must be either gay, or cuckold, or dead. His bisexuality? A non-subject, she approaches it because it is part of her life, the main inspiration for her jokes.
Valves that she refines during “camp jokes” in the Belgian Ardennes with her comedian friends, without however feeling any return to her native countryside. “I wouldn’t like to go back there, I’m a little ashamed of the person I was. In life, once something is over, I move on. I don’t celebrate birthdays either, it pisses me off, ”she assumes in a final snub at her show, happy birthday johnwhich will soon be broadcast on Canal+.
Now free for other projects, she lets herself dream. “One of my big kiffs would be to comment on football,” she concludes.