In wanting to give strong sequences to a telecrochet like Dancing with the Stars, some of them sometimes get tripped up…
A few days ago, the world of entertainment was shaken by a very violent altercation between two entertainment personalities, relayed in the press a few weeks after the events. At the heart of this controversy were two candidates from Dancing with the Stars, the TF1 telecrochet where stars compete on a dance floor, in front of millions of viewers. The articles, published from mid-March, surprise fans: Inès Reg, 31-year-old comedian, and Natasha St-Pier, 43-year-old singer, both participants in the 2024 edition of the first channel’s program, got into a fight backstage on January 31, during rehearsals for the show. But this time the clash is much more violent than those to which this type of show has accustomed us.
Dancing with the Stars, broadcast in prime time on TF1 every Friday, is generally accustomed to strong sequences of rehearsals, showing on social networks or in the second part of the evening the doubts, the suffering, the dramas, but also the clashes between candidates behind the scenes. However, the video of the altercation between Inès Reg and Natasha St-Pier, which was filmed, will not be broadcast. And for good reason: what seemed to be a simple conflict concerning the volume of the music in the rehearsal rooms, located in Malakoff, in the Paris region, degenerated into a quarrel which will give rise to several handrails.
The incident began when Inès Reg, disturbed by the high noise level coming from the room where Natasha St-Pier and her partner Anthony Colette were training, intervened to ask to lower the volume, in order to be able to conduct an interview in a adjacent room. Natasha St-Pier’s response to this request was surprising to say the least: the Canadian singer will unexpectedly insult the comedian and grab her to make her leave the room.
Le Parisien reported several days later that the situation had worsened. Inès Reg would have been threatening (the word “death threat” will be used in the article) towards Natasha St-Pier and Anthony Colette, which pushed them to remove handrails preventively. Inès Reg will firmly deny these accusations to the production, stressing that the entire altercation had been filmed and that witnesses were present. BBC Studios France, which produces the show with TF1, will finally agree with him and decide to suspend St-Pier from rehearsals for three days.
But the damage is done, particularly with the media coverage of the affair: after the publication of the first press articles, Inès Reg quickly faced isolation and rejection from other participants in the show. A situation comparable, according to her, to school bullying of middle school students. She will ask TF1 to broadcast the images of the clash, which the channel will refuse to defend its concept of a “feel good” program. Reconciliation attempts are made, a video intended for social networks is quickly published, with the hope of turning the page and putting an end to the controversy.
But nothing works. Social networks have gone crazy and Inès Reg is the designated culprit. Which prompted the comedian to present his version of the facts in a video published on Instagram between Sunday and Monday. Very affected, sometimes in tears, she recounts the details of the events which took place on January 31.
“I enter their room, the music is loud. Anthony sees me, he cuts the music,” she begins. And to continue: “I ask him if he can turn down the sound, to which he replies: ‘It won’t hurt you’. I reply to him: ‘Actually in the couple, you’re the spicy guy and Natasha is the cute girl.” It was at this moment that Natasha St-Pier would have intervened to defend her dance partner: “At that moment, Natasha is on my right. She has her head down,” says Inès Reg in her video. “Then she said: ‘Listen to me, little slut (…), now you’re going out'”, continues the comedian, who was left shocked and bruised.
“At that moment, I saw a flash. I said to myself: ‘Don’t cry’ (…). After that, the only words that came out of my mouth were: ‘Oh wow ‘(…). It hurt me so much,’ says the candidate in retrospect, who explains that she took refuge in a rest room to cry out of sight. Despite an apology, the comedian, deeply affected by the incident, initially refused to respond to Natasha St-Pier, refusing to mitigate the impact of the insult received.
In her message, Inès Reg also shares the capture of a text message sent to her by Natasha St-Pier subsequently. The singer states that she was thinking of playing a “play” in which she played the “role of the villain” for one of the sequences that fans are fond of. She also assures that she regularly used this type of insult with her close friends: “obviously you can’t know that I am never aggressive and often in the second degree. I found you so great (sic ) that very quickly I wanted to act with you as with my friends and it’s entirely my fault”, we can read.
An explanation that goes wrong: “If I, Inès Reg, a 31-year-old girl of Algerian origin, had told a 43-year-old mother that she was a little slut, I’ll let you imagine what we would have could say about me,” breathes Inès Reg, who concludes despite everything by affirming that she does not want to position herself as a victim and now calls for appeasement.
Will DALS 2024 bounce back and finally manage to forget the affair? Production seems to have taken things seriously with the dismissal of Natasha St-Pier. The singer’s apology SMS also seems to point towards an error of interpretation and Inès Reg herself now assures that she has “no more hatred towards anyone. Neither towards Natasha, nor towards Anthony” and even wants “take Natasha in [her] arms, talk to her, check on her”. But the uneasiness remains palpable.
On the one hand, there remains the harassment that the comedian has suffered and continues to suffer on social networks against a backdrop of racism and fatphobia. Inès Reg also reveals on Instagram that she hesitated to leave Dancing with the Stars because of this affair. On the other hand, we will continue to laugh at the clumsiness of a slightly overzealous candidate. Above all, we will be left with the bitter impression that in this type of program close to reality TV, the recurring search for clashes in front of the cameras has become a discipline almost as important as dance itself. With the slippages that this implies…
