His life changed two years ago. In an interview given to “Parisien” this Sunday, November 24, 2024, Alexandra Pizzagali, comedian and ephemeral columnist for “Télématin”, looks back on the two tumultuous years which followed her controversial stint on France 2. Between bad buzz, descent into hell and revival by the sea, she tells how she got through this period and how she managed to get back on stage.
A shattered dream after a laborious chronicle on the Nice attack
In September 2022, Alexandra Pizzagali seemed to be on the rise. After a notable appearance at the Avignon Festival, she had a string of successes: performances at La Scala, a column on France Inter, and a weekly carte blanche in “Télématin”. A dazzling start to his career which quickly turned into a nightmare. Her first column, where she humorously attempts to “defend“the author of the Nice attack goes wrong. A capricious teleprompter, faulty technical management: the service is laborious, and his chronicle is brutally interrupted by advertising. Puremédias invites you to watch the sequence in the video above.
“But at this moment, I just feel like I’ve shamed myself a little, I’m not aware of what’s going to happen“, she confides. However, the next day, the machine takes off.”I’m starting to receive hyper-aggressive messages, by the hundreds: ‘Go die! Give the money back! No talent!’ It’s very, very violent.” If the form was not there, it is rather the substance that is attacked. The trial of the Nice attack, which cost the lives of 86 people on July 14, 2016 on the Promenade des Anglais, has just opened. The comedian, who is given carte blanche, decides to seize the news. But his penchant for black humor, applied to a subject as sensitive as terrorism, causes a shock. During her column, she describes the terrorist as “Ricky Martin of the Côte d’Azur“, argues that if he hit his wife, “maybe she had been looking for it“, or even jokes about zoophilia. These remarks, although ironic, arouse the indignation of viewers and Internet users. The nuances of his second-degree humor disappear in a torrent of insults.
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Quickly, the doors close. France Télévisions ousts it, just like France Inter. On social networks, the harsh remarks about her lack of talent are eating away at her: “It was so rehashed that I ended up believing it.” Alexandra Pizzagali then recounts how this accumulation of rejections broke her momentum, plunging her theatrical career into slow agony. “When people ask me how I’m doing, I make joke after joke, I don’t realize how much it affects me.”
“Two days later, everyone had moved on. But not me. It took me around 700 more days”
Alexandra Pizzagali
In the following months, she canceled dates, reduced her activities and fell into deep distress. “Two days later, everyone had moved on. But not me. It took me around 700 more days.“In Brittany, surrounded by her family, she hits rock bottom.”I didn’t see any happy prospects in a week, a year, ten years. I say to myself: ‘Eureka, I found it’. As I believe in reincarnation, I will end this life and move on to the next.“It is ultimately the love of those close to him and the fear of harming them that prevent him from committing the irreparable.
The comedian then begins a slow path towards reconstruction. In January 2023, she left Paris and settled in Finistère, where she learned to “zoom out“and reconnects with the essentials.”It’s a bit corny, but I really refocused on things that matter“, she explains. She recharges her batteries with her family and takes the time to think about her deepest desires. If her dreams of writing a column have been shattered, her love for writing and the stage remains intact. Today Today, she is preparing a second show, “It’s in the stomach, chapter II”and developed a series with an evocative title: “Infinite sweetness of tomorrows that cry”.
This Monday, November 25, Alexandra Pizzagali will take the stage at the Théâtre de l’Atelier in Paris for a final performance of her show. “Even if the room is not quite full, this date, I feel it will be pretty“, she said with hope. A symbolic turning point which marks the beginning of a turnaround. From this ordeal, Alexandra Pizzagali remembers one thing: “This story allowed me to question the desires that people attribute to us: no, I don’t want to write chronicles, but to write stories, and above all play them.” A future that she now imagines under the sign of creativity, far from TV sets.
