“You’re going to be broke in the job”
It is 2004 and Baba is depressed. He spends his time slumped on the couch playing PlayStation while emptying packets of chips. If Cyril Hanouna’s mood is at its lowest, it is because he is experiencing a lack of … antenna crisis. Like many animators, the light on the sets acts like a drug for him. He presented La Grosse Émission on Comédie! in 2002, and in 2003 he followed up with the Morning Live of M6 and there, suddenly, nothing. So, to try to recover, he tried, in this year 2004, at standup with a show called Cyril Hanouna est un junk. But the show does not really work: every evening, the hall of the Treviso theater is almost empty and no one talks about him in the press. When the lose is there and well there… But how did it happen? The truth is, chain executives find it too trashy. “Hanouna? Oh no, no! ” : would have replied a big boss of audiovisual when we submitted the name of Cyril for a project. It must be said that Baba has done very hard in recent years. On Comédie !, we saw him completely naked on the set and, on M6, he downright swallowed a glass filled with urine. At the time it was buzzed but in the end it drags this kind of challenge like a ball. Folded in on himself, Cyril no longer leaves his small apartment in Boulogne-Billancourt (Hauts-de-Seine) that he shares with his friend Émilie. He is broke like the wheat. Esther, her mother, gives her 200 euros per week. He’s at the bottom of the hole. It was then that he was offered to participate in The Celebrity Farm on TF1. Cyril feels the blow: “It was well paid and I was looking for exposure”, explains the host-producer to Catherine Ceylac in Th é o Café (France 2) in March 2014. But Émilie sees things other. For her, it’s niet: “You’re not going to go into this has-been thing, you’re going to be broke in the job!” Cyril then refuses TF1’s proposal but bitterly regrets it when he notices that La Ferme is a hit. He is angry with Émilie. Their relationship is strained while Angel, Cyril’s father, advises his son to stop everything and take up the career of a chartered accountant. What if the father was right?
His career
MORNING LIVE (M6) After having cut his teeth on Comédie !, Cyril takes over from Michaël Youn and goes even further in trash. It’ll play tricks on him.
LA BONNE TOUCHE (RTL) After years of professional scarcity, he returns to RTL where he co-presents a program with Jean-Pierre Foucault. Like a dubbing?
PLIÉS EN 4 (FRANCE 4) Bruno Gaston, France 4’s program director, believes in its potential and places it on entertainment shows. The results are mixed to say the least.
FA IF THE SING (FRANCE 3), DON’T TOUCH MY POSITION! (FRANCE 4) Cyril is in charge of reboosting Fa if to sing it: failure. But with Touche not at my post, he finally finds the right formula. France 4 is delighted.
NO TOUCH TO MY POSITION, NEW STAR (D8) He transposes TPMP into daily on D8 and it is the box. The Canal group entrusts New Star to him, but Cyril is not very motivated. He prefers to present AND produce.
LES PIEDS DANS LE PLAT (EUROPE 1) On Europe 1, he tried for three seasons to compete with the Big Heads (RTL) of Laurent Ruquier. A complicated challenge.
BALANCE TON POST (C8) He strengthens his game by approaching social issues with a show reminiscent of Ciel mon mardi !, by Christophe Dechavanne in the 90s. Controversies, shouts, scandals and… successes.
THE BIG RIGOLADE, TAKE OR LEAVE (C8) Emission of jokes or remake of old cathodic hits, Cyril plays on all fronts and wins the audience victory (almost) every time.
FACING BABA (C8) He goes up a notch to play the interviewer of personalities in this pre-election year. First guest of Face à Baba, Éric Zemmour: darka or rassrah?
Baba’s big business
In twenty years, Baba has gone from loser to super winner. Since his deal at 250 million (over five years) with Vincent Bolloré, he has become the mogul of the PAF. Sources evoke a salary of animators at 50,000 euros per month (not counting his activities as producers). Every night, Hanouna gathers an average of 1.7 million fans. But television is only part of the system. Its show attracts 32,000 additional spectators in replay each day and totals more than 237 million views on digital platforms (+ 36% in one year). On the real estate side, Cyril bought a villa in Los Angeles (California) for 4.7 million euros but as he does not benefit from it due to his numerous activities in France, he decided to rent it “because it is a better placement ”confided a relative of the star to Challenges in November 2011. Hanouna? Mr Good Deal. Cyril Hanouna
Vow of celibacy
On a dry diet for two years! From 2003 to 2019, Émilie was an unwavering support for Cyril. Present when he struggled, she once worked in Gérard Louvin’s production company, had two children: Lino (9 years old) and Bianca (10 years old). Subsequently, the success, the hyper exposure of the host and the pressure got the better of their relationship.
In October 2021, Cyril officially announces their breakup since 2019 in TPMP. He specifies: “I am currently single. Out of respect for the people who were with me, I remain single for at least two years. ”
Many ignore it, but Cyril’s middle name is Valéry. Angel, who rather supported François Mitterrand, having wanted to please his wife Giscardienne when Cyril was born in 1974 in Paris (15th arrondissement), the year in which Valéry Giscard d’Estaing accedes to the Élysée. With Yaël, Cyril’s sister, the family moved to Les Lilas (Seine-Saint-Denis). Ange and Esther, who is the manager of a luxury clothing store in Vincennes (Val-de-Marne), are of Tunisian Jewish origin and arrived in France in 1969. It was not until 1985 that the entire family will be naturalized French. Cyril was then 11 years old and he was already a lively and funny kid who was interested in TV and tennis. He obtained a scientific baccalaureate, followed studies as a chartered accountant (without real conviction) then sent everything flying to fully live his great passion: to laugh. And if possible on TV sets, where as a teenager he already participated in shows like Le Juste Prix (TF1) or That the best wins (France 2). After having multiplied odd jobs (animator in a leisure center or sales representative in fabrics) and internships in TV or radio, Cyril starts at Comédie! in 2000 where, in two years, he became the host of La Grosse Émission, the emblematic show of the Canal + group channel, directed by Dominique Farrugia. His career is launched… At least he believes it. So back in 2004. To try to get out of losing, Cyril is going to promote his stand-up on Direct 8 (future C8). He is unaware of it but this passage on this channel of the TNT, founded by Vincent Bolloré, will prove to be decisive. At the end of the show, a man is waiting for her: “Hello, I’m Vincent Bolloré. Would you like to have coffee with me in my office? ” From then on, a relationship was woven between the Breton billionaire and the comic apprentice. They exchange their numbers and send each other text messages regularly. “I would like you to meet Yannick,” Vincent Bolloré told him one day. “With his son, it immediately stuck. We became really good friends. And in 2010, Yannick and I had the idea of setting up a company together. That’s how H2O was born ”, explains Hanouna to Le Monde in April 2021. That’s good because that year, Cyril managed to make his way into the public service thanks to a joking media talk show broadcast on France 4. His name? Do not touch My TV. The directors of the channel are happy: after years of development, between failures and mixed successes, they have succeeded in making Cyril the head of the gondola of France 4. They will quickly be disillusioned. Because the host, who registered the name and the concept of his show, decided in 2012 to do business with the Bolloré. Bye France Télé and bonjour C8, where thanks to a huge contract signed in 2015 (250 million euros over five years), the channel of the Canal group will become its playground. Its flagship program, Touche pas à mon poste, daily version on C8 will revolutionize the concept by focusing on a very strong proximity with the public via Twitter, and a cash side from reality TV where the behind the scenes of TPMP (salaries and private life of columnists, bickering with the CSA …) are an integral part of the show . Above all, Baba brings together and gives voice to a young audience, transgressive and very popular compared to its bobo-urban competitor Quotidien (TMC) more staid, more Parisian, more thoughtful. Today Baba is at a crossroads. Since Balance your post and his book with Christophe Barbier What the French told me (ed. Fayard), we feel that the host-producer is changing. From comical trash, Cyril now intends to play the observer of society and politics. Thus with Face à Baba (C8), his new show, he intends to interview “the personalities who are making the news of the moment”. After Face à Duhamel on BFMTV, Face à Baba on C8. Unavoidable ! ¦
“Hello, I’m Vincent Bolloré, do you want to have a coffee?”
My friend poto: His charity project
It was when he received the yellow vests that he initially wanted to create a heart bank. But deemed impractical, the idea was then transformed into a platform called: My friend poto, a project originally founded by Ryad Boulanouar, a computer engineer, whom Hanouna decided to help. It is a chatbot service that works like a social worker in order to guide internet users in need through the intricacies of the administration. In addition, Mon ami poto will devote itself to financially helping associations via a solidarity cryptocurrency called poto. Logic.
Arthur: his best enemy
Cyril Hanouna is a competitor who, like any good competitor, does not hesitate to go to the clash. His favorite targets? Karine Ferri, Michel Cymes or even Karine Le Marchand. But his favorite Turkish face remains Arthur. These two may have been friends in the past, but that is all over. Result, Arthur and Cyril clash fairly regularly and while we thought the hatchet was buried for a time, hostilities resumed with a vengeance last September. Arthur having filed a complaint against Cyril for having denigrated one of his productions.
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