Over the years, Alexia Laroche-Joubert has risen to the rank of French television star. It was she who introduced the French to reality TV, notably by launching Loft Storythat a series called Worship highlighted on Prime Video. Since then, Alexia Laroche-Joubert has come a long way in the field and The loft was not the only successful program that we owe to him. It is also hidden behind that of the Star Academy presented by Nikos Aliagas since its launch in 2001.
As if to take stock of this very great career, Alexia Laroche-Joubert was the guest of the show C media this Sunday, January 12, 2025 on France 5. The opportunity to look at everything she has undertaken since she broke into the television industry, to talk about her loved ones, including a very famous war reporter, and her entourage professional, its successes but also its failures. And contrary to what many may think, Star Academy was not a hit from the start.
Words from the boss of TF1 at the time changed everything
Asked about the show’s potential at launch, Alexia Laroche-Joubert did not hide the fact that she did not believe in it at all : “It was a failure at launch. It’s still improbable. We went with Stéphane Courbit, whom you showed previously, and who is my boss, to see the people at TF1 and we told them ‘it doesn’t matter, we’ll reimburse you. We messed up etc.’.”
If the program was therefore on the verge of ending up in oblivion, it only took a small intervention from the boss of TF1 at the time, Patrick Le Lay, who died in 2020, for everything to make sense again: “There’s this crazy sequence where Patrick Le Lay arrives and says ‘But There’s something I don’t understand, your students don’t sing. It’s a singing school.‘And he leaves and ultimately it creates Star Academy. It’s us, we were coming out of Loft Story, we were probably too much in a classic reality TV, and there we said to ourselves, we’re going to invite artists, we’re going to make them sing etc. And it exploded.” It’s Ebony, Franck and Marine, the last three students still in the running for Star Academy 2024, who must be very grateful to him today!
