“This decision is not sudden or light.” At the end of September, Flore Benguigui announced that she was leaving the group L'Impératrice, of which she was the singer for almost ten years.
“Leaving this project into which I put all my soul and energy for 9 years is in fact the only way to protect my health, physical and mental, which has been seriously undermined in recent years,” she explained. on his Instagram account, citing “deep personal and artistic disagreements”.
In a filmed interview given to Mediapart and published this Sunday, the singer and composer lifts the veil on the reasons behind her departure and accuses the five other members of the group of psychological violence, humiliation and pressure for several years.
“I was always told that I was a bad singer, that I sang out of tune, not loud enough,” she explains. And added: “I got to a point where I told myself that I didn't deserve to be there, that I didn't deserve the success of The Empress, to do all these tours all over the world and that on the contrary, I deserved to be treated like that, to be demeaned. »
“Under influence”
During her interview, the singer also testifies to inappropriate behavior from certain members of the group, alternating between “love bombing”, intense declarations of love, and humiliation. “They could yell at me in front of the other members of the group (…) Once, one of the members of the group was physically threatening towards me and it almost went quite far,” confides the artist, saying he was “completely under influence” during this period.
Flore Benguigui even says she lost her voice for a year and a half, being forced to hide behind recorded voices to perform concerts. “I was depressed, on anxiolytics,” she remembers, evoking a “huge humiliation” and denouncing the absence of “questioning from the group”. In addition to psychological violence, she also points to a “creative process” guided by money.
“The best for the future”
The five members of the group told Mediapart that they discovered “the seriousness of the facts and feelings shared” by the singer. Saying they are “sad about this situation”, they assure that “the situations described by Flore [Benguigui] do not correspond to the reality of the facts. »
“If the investment and attention we have given it has not been enough, we can only regret it. In any case, we wish him all the best for the future,” they conclude.
A successful group, particularly internationally, founded in 2012, L'Impératrice released its latest album “Pulsar” in June 2024. After the departure of Flore Benguigui, the singer's place was taken over by Louve.
