The French singer participated in season 5 of Cheng Fengluck of Star Academy Chinese. And won it on Thursday, June 27.
French singer Joyce Jonathan won season 5 of the talent show on Thursday June 27 Cheng FengChinese equivalent of Star Academyin the city of Changsha. The only French woman to take part in this women’s competition broadcast by Mango TV, she won against the 36 candidates at the start of the programme. She was the only European still in the running in the final, as she told Le Parisien.
“We are only women over thirty, who already have a professional career,” she explained to the daily. “I am competing with other singers, actresses and TV presenters who are famous in their countries.”
The adventure Cheng Feng (or Ride the Waveliterally “surfing the wave”) lasted four months, during which the interpreter of Today’s Girls observed a frantic pace of work: “Twelve days in China, a week in France, twelve days in China…”, she explains. “It’s extremely intense and trying. We work 22 hours a day, we sleep two hours a night. I’ve cried more than once from exhaustion, I’ve been sick right before a performance, I’ve been seeing blank, I was throwing up…”
Mandarin songs
To say that Joyce Jonathan stepped out of her comfort zone is an understatement. Apart from an interpretation ofTo the Champs Elysees by Joe Dassin, she only sang in Mandarin.
“Playing the piano live + singing live in Mandarin on a new song was an opportunity to challenge myself once again,” she wrote a few days ago on Instagram after a duet performance.
The singer was also encouraged and congratulated by Gabriel Attal, with whom she had a “college romance”, as she confided to Elle last January. The Prime Minister had recorded a video of support, in which he expressed his “pride”.
“You are going to have a fantastic career, you are going to shine, as I know you. It is a great experience that you must live. And above all it is a superb message that is sent, at the time when we are celebrating this year the 60th anniversary of Franco-Chinese diplomatic relations, it is a magnificent message”.
“You are bringing this Franco-Chinese friendship to life by participating in this Cheng Feng 2024 program. So, have a great trip and I am fully behind you.”
Joyce Jonathan is not unknown in China, a country that has fascinated her “since she was little”: “I have been going there for fifteen years, I have a manager there, I sow little seeds by going out all my records, doing concerts every year I sang on TV four years ago for Chinese New Year.
More Cheng Feng and her “13.5 billion views per season throughout Asia” have propelled her fame to the next level: “Fans are waiting for me outside the hotel, it’s crazy! At the airport, the police ask me for autographs, the flight attendants recognize me, it’s funny.” Still according to Le Parisien, Joyce Jonathan will soon be back in China: after a summer tour in France, she will return to the Middle Kingdom in September for a festival, then for seven concerts in November.
