“The emotional charge is incredible,” she confided on Saturday during the “Star Academy” premiere. Olivia Ruiz had not reappeared in the TF1 telecrochet since her participation in the first season, of which she was a finalist, in… 2001. It was a small event in itself. “Twenty-three years later, you came. Shall we do this again in twenty-three years? », asked Nikos Aliagas in the third part of the show. To which the 44-year-old artist replied “I think we won’t wait that long now, eh”.
It must be said that the author, composer and performer with 2.5 million albums sold has long had a conflicted relationship with the program. If Olivia Ruiz has always recognized that she owed “Star Academy” for having revealed her to the public, she on the other hand had difficulty accepting the “reality TV” dimension. She was 21 years old when she entered the castle of Dammarie-les-Lys in 2001. A few months earlier, M6 had launched “Loft Story”, a confinement program which marked a turning point in the history of audiovisual French, sparking its share of controversies and indignation.
The reasons for distrust
“At the start, we are introduced [« Star Academy »] as being a school. TF1 denies doing reality TV by saying: “We don’t make trash TV, it’s not the ‘Loft’. Here we are in a learning center”, recalled Olivia Ruiz at the microphone of Europe 1 in December. “After a few weeks, the show didn’t work. So the learning center is equipping itself with cameras in the bathrooms and bedrooms to transform things, she also said. And then all of a sudden, it takes off thanks to that. Which says a lot anyway… When you leave, you can imagine that we don’t want to go look at everything that has just happened.
Nearby Parisianshe had slipped in November that she hoped that production today took “more care of the candidates […] after the show”, lamenting that some of his classmates had been abandoned to their own devices.
Olivia Ruiz therefore had a distrust towards “Star Academy”, which explains why she never returned to promote herself on the set, that she did not participate in the anniversary shows bringing together the former emblematic candidates, and even that it was blurred in the archive images of the various reports devoted to telecrochet.
“An old pile of tears”
Why did she change her opinion? She gave the beginning of an answer by coming to rehearse, Friday, with the four star academicians of the current season. ” I watched. I was surprised to see that it was very different [de mon époque]. You were so cute so I said ‘Yes, well, okay, I’ll come’,” she confided to Helena, Pierre, Axel and Julien. The emotion showed through in his voice: “I arrived in front [le studio 217 où se déroulent les primes cette année et où avaient lieu les primes également en 2001], tears were coming. »
On Saturday evening, Oliva Ruiz was no less upset. Before performing a medley of her songs with the students, she repeatedly said how “happy” she was to be there. At the mention of a return to the castle of Dammarie-les-Lys where the “Star Ac’” adventure took place and where she has not set foot again, she declared that, if she had gone there, she might have been “an old pile of tears for a few hours.” She didn’t completely reject the prospect of returning: “It’s an idea…”