“We wanted to put her in the spotlight. Not to avenge her, but to show that her fragility comes from somewhere and that you have to be very strong to overcome it,” explains Nicolas Slomka, co-creator of the series. Worshipuploaded Friday, on Prime Video. In this fiction behind the scenes of the creation of “Loft Story”, we only see her: Loana. A fascinating character played by Marie Colomb, striking in this role.
It all began on April 26, 2001. Barely out of the car that propelled her to the doors of the loft, a young 23-year-old candidate attracted all eyes. With peroxide hair, a baby blue mesh bra and a teddy bear as a backpack, Loana stands out. And in the space of a few minutes, she is assigned a stereotypical role that will stick to her, that of the fragile and vulnerable bimbo.
“She has all the stigmata for the press of the time: she is a woman, blonde, she has an appearance that she highlights, she comes from the south of France and from a working class background. She is mistreated in the media for all these reasons,” underlines journalist Paul Sanfourche, journalist and author of the book Sexism Story published by Editions du Seuil, in 2021.
A media birth – and mistreatment – that Worship attempts to trace over the course of its six episodes, alongside the behind-the-scenes story of the production of the program. In retrospect, it also makes us reconsider the particularly violent view given to the candidate.
Stigmatization and plundered privacy
What does the name Loana mean to you? It’s hard not to think, in the back of your mind, of the famous episode at the swimming pool and this intimate scene between the young woman and another candidate. The series looks at the issues of this sequence at length, the confusion of the production but also the scandal it causes. If we now barely remember Jean-Edouard’s face, for Loana, this evening had the effect of an explosion.
« “This is the first experience of French bashing for a woman. From the moment there is the swimming pool sequence, everyone gets a hold of it: the “Guignols” make jokes, all the TV sets are laughing at the mention of this scene… We must still remember that it is simply a young woman of 23 who has sex with a young man. The stigmatization of the act and of Loana is still delusional. » »
Another event highlighted in the Prime Video series, the pillaging of Loana’s private life. France Sunday first reveals the existence of his hidden daughter. Information that the candidate had decided to keep confidential. In the process, Paris Match grabs it and gets photos of little Mindy from Loana’s mother. A personal photo of the young mother holding her baby in her arms then ended up on the cover of the magazine.
“The articles are extremely trashy and publishing this child’s face on the front page is extremely violent… She was the victim of total sexism. A general sneer resounded throughout France at the time, and this lasted for years… There is a kind of contempt for Loana, for who she is, for the reasons for her success and for the income that she draws on her celebrity,” laments journalist Paul Sanfourche.
“She used me, like everyone else”
Many labels, prejudices and misogyny have reduced Loana Petrucciani, her full name, to a reality TV character. “I had the impression that we were judging this woman a lot, that we were looking at her in a way that wasn’t always very sympathetic or at least in a narrow way,” says Marie Colomb, who plays her role in this fiction. Playing her was a responsibility, I wanted to show her more accurately, in her complexity as a human being. It was written like that in the script, I tried to live up to that. »
The series – for which Loana was a consultant – features a moving, fascinating young woman. We discover his moods, some of his sufferings, but also his strengths.
« “People have the image of today’s Loana, to whom very complicated things happened recently and then they remember the swimming pool but not the rest. They don’t remember where she comes from, the journey she took during the “Loft” to regain power. We end with a glimpse of the post-“Loft” for her, which is that of a businesswoman who took power over her destiny. We wanted to remember it and show it,” says co-creator Nicolas Slomka. »
“She doesn’t want to settle scores”
Some of this character’s lines also resonate more than others. Like this sentence pronounced by Loana to Isabelle (a character inspired by producer Alexia Laroche-Joubert), after discovering her mother’s involvement in the affair Paris Match : “She used me, like everyone else. »
Should we see Worship like a series that rehabilitates Loana? The first concerned, contacted by 20 Minutesdid not respond to our message.
« “She doesn’t want to settle scores. She’s not here for revenge, at least judging by the conversations we had with her. » »
Our Reality TV file
Paul Sanfourche, for his part, expresses some reservations about this series produced by Alexia Laroche-Joubert, which gave birth to “Loft Story” and whose fictional double on screen, Isabelle, is played by Anaïde Rozem.
“What appeals to me is that it is the same people who produced “Loft”, who produce the series. We cannot completely think that it is neutral in the treatment, believes the journalist. These same people have been controlling the narrative around Loana and her character for twenty years. They built it in 2001 and are rebuilding it in 2024.” The series, in any case, has the merit of deconstructing some of our memories and prejudices.
