You may have noticed this little Jeanne accent from your living room. We could hear it clearly when the Robervalois addressed Meriem, this other competitor who visibly took him “for a cellar!” Then we guessed it again this week, when he left the game, when he declared, with style, to be both “fabulousqueer and traitor.
Maxence Garneau was born and raised in Lac-Saint-Jean, and he still returns there every Christmas, every summer, to “recharge his batteries”. If he left for Montreal at the age of 17, after a sometimes difficult adolescence, it was above all to follow his dreams and aspirations.
Maxence Garneau lived the experience to the fullest, acting as both a loyal and a traitor in the game. (Entourage Television)
Having grown up with Quebec television, this is the environment he always aspired to. Even if he didn’t always feel fully represented there.
“Fifteen years ago, there were still few openly gay men on TV. Many hid it. I had these models, and I remember saying to someone in high school: if I’m gay, I’ll have to hide it. In my head, it was going to harm my life, my career,” confides the main person involved in an interview with The Daily.
If his school career was indeed difficult at certain points, Maxence Garneau today has a professional track record which would have been enough to allay his youthful fears. Working for nearly a decade as a television researcher, he has worked on a number of productions, such as Love is in the meadow, The week of the 4 Julies And In the eye of the dragon. In addition to appearing this fall in the first season of the show Traitorson Noovo.
Le Jeannois is more used to working behind the cameras, as a television researcher. (Entourage Television)
It is also partly because of his work – combined with his flamboyant presence on social networks – that he was approached to participate in the reality show hosted by Karine Vanasse.
Because it was by invitation, and not by auditions, that the production proceeded, he said.
“They wanted jobs where people are used to reading others quickly, understanding them, analyzing them. As a television researcher, we are the ones who do the pre-interviews with the guests; in reality TV, we must be able to see if they are going to put on a good show. And afterwards, if people have insecurities, we must reassure them, use persuasion to convince them to stay in the adventure.”
And by the greatest coincidence, he says, his actress friend Marianne Verville had told him about the show Traitors at the beginning of last summer, emphasizing then that she would welcome him participating in such a game.
Maxence Garneau is proud to have shown himself as he really is, on screen. (Guillaume Boucher)
“It kind of planted a seed in my head, so I listened to two episodes of the first American season, and I was trying to project myself into the game. Then the next day, someone called me to ask me if I wanted to participate,” says Maxence Garneau again.
Having lived the adventure to the fullest, acting as much as a faithful person as a traitor, he today bears witness to a “flying” experience, punctuated by a roller coaster of emotions and significant encounters. Particularly with Marie-Josée, who has since forgiven him for his little betrayal – rest assured!
“I’m used to being on the other side of the cameras. There, it was as if I was in a parallel reality. The mansion is impressive too. You don’t have your cell phone, you don’t have any bearings, you’re with 20 strangers who come from different backgrounds. It’s rare for me to meet former spies,” laughs the friendly researcher, adding that it became difficult sometimes to remember that it was only a game during filming which dates back to last summer.
It was a trying dozen days, to be sure. But he does not regret any spat with Meriem – whom he is not about to invite to Lac-Saint-Jean, despite mutual respect –, no big blow, no arrow thrown. Even less for having been equal to himself, and for having shown all his colors.
“It’s a bit of my goal in life to offer visibility to the queer community. And diversity in all its forms too. We rarely hear the word queer in the media. There are ladies who wrote to me to tell me that I had taught them a new word with my release. There is still education to be done, and this is my way of doing it. I am an activist in my own way, I approach it with humor, simplicity,” maintains the Jeannois, who has received enough positive messages since then to make us forget the few hateful missives.
“I do not fit not within gender norms. I blow it up a bit by what I give off, my long hair, my androgynous features, the fact that I don’t have a beard. But I have the body I have, I’m proud to look like that and I think I’m beautiful! So why would I cut my hair to fit into the mold?”, he adds, by way of conclusion.
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