“Star Académie”: “Our job is to tell them the real deal, to shake them up a little” – Garou

Garou has never accepted that the people around him pay compliments – and only compliments – when, for example, he comes off stage and listens to their comments.

While the adrenaline is pumping and he is being driven to his hotel, he prefers that his team tell him the real deal.

• Also read: “Star Académie”: “Our job is to tell them the real deal, to shake them up a little” – Garou

This is also what he intends to do this season as director of the Academy of Star Academyas we saw in the daily last week. Some Internet users reacted badly to the remarks of Garou or the faculty, made up of Émily Bégin, Véronic DiCaire and Pierre Lapointe.

Garou is not surprised that some followers of Star Academy find that they are sometimes harsh with Academicians.

“I find it beautiful, it means that people have already adopted the Academicians as their children,” he mentioned just before the second variety of the season, Sunday. Our job is to tell them the real deal, to shake them up a little. When we give them compliments, it’s not sycophancy, it’s a real bravo,” Garou underlined.

He always wanted those around him to stir him up, if necessary.

“What pissed me off the most when I started was when people said to me: “Ah, you were good tonight!” or “what a good show!”. It made me angry, because I wanted people to say to me: “that wasn’t great” and “yeah, that one wasn’t so good”,” revealed Garou, a method reminiscent of that of René Angélil with Celine Dion.

Horn on the ego

“It’s a tough job, you have to knock their ego. I want truth, spontaneity. We need to get Academicians out of the woods. You have to know how to take criticism, you have to know how to live with failure, and I would add that it is always done with kindness,” added the big guy.

Garou therefore believes, like the Academy’s faculty, that we advance better in this environment by not burying our heads in the sand.

“I like authenticity, I’m here for that,” continued the director. This is what I said at the beginning to Jean-Philippe Dion: it is at your own risk if I am director. At first, I didn’t see myself getting into this, then he said to me: “I want that, in truth, I want it to shake things up a bit”. We didn’t consult each other, it’s not a mission that we gave ourselves, but the four of us, so me and the teaching staff, are on the same page: we say the real things, we really talk to each other real business, we agree, so either all four of us are wrong (laughs). We’re real!”