Michael Goldman returns to his role as director of the Star Academy for a new season, which begins November 4 on TF1.
Who is Michael Goldman? Short biography. Last year, for the big return of the Star Academy, Michael Goldman became, at the age of 43, the new director of the castle of Dammarie-les-Lys. A role that he is reprising for this new season of tele-hook, which begins on November 4 on TF1. The opportunity to get to know this producer and his illustrious father, Jean-Jacques Goldman.
Relatively unknown to the general public, Michael Goldman made a name for himself in the music industry by creating in 2007 the label and crowdfunding platform reserved for musicians My Major Company, which manages, among others, the career of Joyce Jonathan. Born July 24, 1979 in Paris, he also launched the French crowdfunding platform Tipeee in 2013.
A lyricist in his spare time, Michael Goldman found himself at the heart of a controversy upon the release of the controversial documentary on Covid-19 Hold-up, at the end of 2020, his platform having hosted its financing. “I accept everything that is on this site, from the most anti-Semitic to the least anti-Semitic, and from the most conspiratorial to the least conspiratorial,” he declared in the program Complément d’investigation on France 2 in 2021, advocating freedom of speech.
So agreeing to become the new director of the Star Academy was not obvious for Michael Goldman. “To be completely honest, I hesitated for a moment to be part of this adventure and I said yes when attending the casting because the kids made me fall for it,” he confides to Le Parisien. And to elaborate: “Helping young people is a family thing, I come from a family that loves taking care of little ones! My mother and my big sister are children’s psychologists, my other sisters are pediatricians!”
When talking about Michael Goldman, it’s difficult not to talk about his father, the singer Jean-Jacques Goldman. “I’ve been used to being told about it since I was born (…) It’s part of my identity, it’s normal. As for my father, he congratulated me when he knew that I was going to do the show. I’m not sure if he had TV but Star Ac was one of the only shows where he had done a bit of promotion so he remembered it well.” explains the producer to Le Parisien before returning to Star Academy.
Needless to say, Jean-Jacques Goldman was not completely absent from this first bonus, since Nikos couldn’t help but make a little joke to the director, who then confided that he was incapable of doing what the students had done. during this first evening. “Just in a moment, Michael Goldman is singing all of his father’s hits!”, said the TF1 presenter, all smiles.
Before his entry into the Star Academy, Michael Goldman was relatively unknown to the public, unlike his father, Jean-Jacques Goldman. If the latter has been among the favorite personalities of the French for many years, his mother has remained in the shadows throughout the career of Jean-Jacques Goldman: this is Catherine Morlet, who shared the life of Jean-Jacques Goldman for two years. On July 7, 1975, Jean-Jacques Goldman married Catherine Morlet. Together they have three children, Caroline, born in 1975, Michael in 1979 and Nina in 1985. The couple divorced in 1997 after 22 years of marriage.
Jean-Jacques Goldman married Catherine Morlet in 1975. Michael Goldman has an older sister, Caroline, born the same year, and a younger sister, born in 1985. After his remarriage in 2002, Jean-Jacques Goldman again had three daughters, Maya born in 2004, Kimi in 2005 and Rose in 2007. Michael Goldman therefore has five sisters and half-sisters.
The appointment of Michael Goldman, an accomplished producer, to the post of director of the Star Academy sounded like an “obvious fact” according to a source close to the matter interviewed in 2022 by Le Parisien: “He is 43 years old, he knows the music world like his pocket, he is excited about the project, he has a good face… And then the name Goldman, that will definitely help, let’s not hide our faces!”, added the same anonymous source.
Nikos Aliagas, who took over the helm of the Star Academy presentation, was then welcomed at the arrival of this new face. “Michael made his way on his own, despite his father’s name and for a reason because he loves music and discovering talents. Every word counts. We chose him because he never asked to be there”, he underlined on the set of Quotidien Friday October 14, 2022.
Michael Goldman therefore took over from Alexia Laroche-Joubert (director of the Star Academy in 2001 and 2002, then from 2005 to 2007), Nathalie André, Gérard Louvin and Armande Altaï.
At the Star Academy, Michael Goldman is, according to information from Here, the highest paid of all the teaching staff. According to the magazine, the promotion director had earned around 30,000 euros for six weeks of competition, or… 5,000 euros per week, during the 2022 season. He would thus have beaten the dance teacher , Yanis Marshall, with 18,000 euros, Adeline Toniutti, singing teacher, Laure Balon, stage expression teacher and Lucie Bernardioni, coach, all three of whom would receive 6,000 euros. Pierre de Brauer, the theater teacher, would be the least well paid with a salary of 3,600 euros.
