In Do not touch My TV this Friday, October 27, 2023, Cyril Hanouna and his columnists returned at length to the shock announcement made by TF1 a few hours earlier: the return of Secret Story. After six years of absence, the channel’s iconic reality TV game will make its comeback on the group’s channels, after months of discussions with Jean-Louis Blot, the boss of EndemolShine, and Alexia Laroche-Joubert , the popess of the Banijay France group. If the return of the game was made official by TF1, nothing but tight-lipped about the host who will embody this revival. According to Cyril Hanouna, his ex-columnist Benjamin Castaldi, who hosted the first seasons of the game until his departure from the channel in 2014, would not have been contacted: “I had my Benji on the phone today, and they didn’t even call him”assured the C8 host.
Gilles Verdez assured that Christophe Beaugrand was contacted and received by the management of TF1and would appear as the favorite: “He was accepted and auditioned, so it is not excluded that it was him who took over. He had succeeded Benjamin, the program had died down a little with him, it had not been a success” pointed out the journalist. Cyril Hanouna wanted to defend the TF1 host: “Go and do a program on TFX, we’ll see if it doesn’t disappear. You did a program on CNEWS, it disappeared in a week. Christophe Beaugrand was not unworthy on TFX“.
A return to prime-time with Nabilla?
For Cyril Hanouna, the return of Secret Story would be done in the first part of the evening, for budgetary reasons, and no longer in the second half of the evening like in the heyday. Interviewed by 7 Days TV last July, Benjamin Castaldi, who was then promoting his new play co-written with Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt, returned to the return of Secret Story and confirmed at that time that he had not received any call from the management of TF1 to possibly return to the helm of the program: “I haven’t received any phone calls and I’m not even sure if anyone thought of me. I heard that Nabilla was approached. For this program to make a comeback, it must be subversive, disturbing and borderline.”.