Secret Story 1 (France)

Principle

The principle is similar to that of Loft Story. The contestants are kept locked away for 10 weeks in a house, called "La Maison des Secrets" (the House of Secrets) measuring 1600 m² styled on the UK Big Brother 8 house including a swimming pool, jacuzzi, a lounge (where the bath is), bathroom with showers, and separate bathrooms for each sex. All of the rooms are installed with cameras, except the toilet due to a law imposed by the Conseil Supérieur de l'audiovisuel. The Voice speaks to the contestants at times, and acts like "Big Brother" in other countries. Each contestant has to conceal a secret. Everyone else has to try and discover it. If a contestant does, that contestant wins the jackpot of the contestant whose secret they have guessed. Each secret is worth €10,000. Each Tuesday, 2 contestants are nominated and put up against the public vote to be evicted on the Friday. The girls and boys nominate the opposite sex, alternating weekly.

The show was originally to last 12 weeks, with 12 candidates, but Angela Lorente, director of reality TV shows on TF1, said in an interview that there would be 14 contestants over 10 weeks. Eventually, 15 contestants, of which three were triplets competing as one, thus making 13 official contestants.

Title sequence

The theme tune is I Wanna Chat by Booty Full. The single was released by TF1 on 20 August 2007. The title sequence shows all of the contestants. The evicted ones are shown, but their names aren't.

Broadcasts

The first live show was broadcast at 8:50pm on 23 June 2007. Each subsequent eviction show is now shown at around 10:20pm every Friday with a live audience. The daily shows showing highlights from the past 24 hours are broadcast between 6-7pm with repeats shown in the early hours following. Action can be seen live 22 hours a day on Canal 144, Canal 52 or on the official website. Each day, around 500,000 people connected to the live stream on the website (around 2.5 times more than the live Star Academy feed).

Contestants

There were 15 people, with the Triplets competing as one, making 13 contestants. They are:

Erwan

Erwan Henaux, aged 19, lives in a hearth of young workers and studies first year social sciences. His secret is that he is transsexual.

Fred

Frédéric "Fred", aged 38, claims he made contact with extraterrestrials.

Gabriel

Gabriel Jordani, aged 26, is an artist. He is single and is working for La Voix (The Voice).

Julien

Julien Colas, aged 26, is an escort boy. He is described as a 'young man of taste'.

Laly

Nelly "Laly" Valade, aged 26, is described as being irritated easily and shouting a lot. Laly works for the police and is a stripper.

Maryline

Maryline, aged 26, is a naturist, measuring 6'1''. She is unmarried because she has no time to find a man.

Maxime

Maxime Leconte, aged 21, had been living in London for a few months prior the show. He is the son of Henri Leconte.

Nadège

Nadège Dabrowski, aged 20, is a model and has a height of 5'6''. She suffers from OCD.

Nicolas

Nicolas Guillermin, aged 24, is a Chippendales dancer. His secret is that he lost 50 kg before the show.

Ophélie

Ophélie Marie, aged 23, is a playmate. She is described as a young woman full of energy.

Tatiana

Tatiana Laurens-Delarue (née Tatiana Hammoudi), aged 25, lives in Paris. Her mother died when she was young. Tatiana has been married to Xavier for a year.

The Triplets

Cyrielle, Johanna, and Marjorie Bluteau, all aged 23, are triplets. This was their secret. If they managed to hide their secret for a week, they would win €10,000. However, housemate Tatiana discovered the secret before the first week was over. They competed under the name Marjorie.

The Triplets with a similar task were also seen in Big Brother 3 Bulgaria in 2006.

Xavier

Xavier Delarue, aged 29, has played professional basketball for ten years. He has been married to Tatiana for a year. He threatened to leave the game on August 20 after hearing a message from former housemate Maryline.

Hidden Rooms

The house also compromises of several other hidden rooms, made available to the contestants at various points throughout the show.

Secret Bedroom

Cyrielle, Johanna, and Marjorie and are triplets. They were to switch once a day for a week, taking turns, with one in the main house and two staying in a secret bedroom, located in the loft, accessed through a secret hatch in the Confessional (the equivalent of the Diary Room). However, Tatiana discovered their secret before the week was up and so they lost their chance to get the €10,000.

Chamber of Secrets

The Chambre des Vérités, translated as the "Room of Truths" is a completely white room equipped with a lie detector, developed by the Israeli services. Each contestant will go into the Chamber of Secrets and be put in front of the Lie Detector and will have to answer questions from the other contestants either 'yes' or 'no'. If the light goes green, the contestant is telling the truth; red is a lie and orange means 'indeterminable'.

Second Chamber of Secrets

Two contestants, a man and a woman, were chosen by the production team to leave the house. Maryline and Xavier were chosen and the other contestants were told that they had been evicted. However, in reality, they were in a secret bedroom, able to follow the other contestants with a TV and headphones, similar to the Big Brother bedsit, used in the Big Brother UK 2004 house. After they returned, the room was kept and used by Tatiana and Xavier on their anniversary, after their secret had been revealed.

The Secrets

Secrets revealed to the public in the daily shows

Chronology involving the Secrets

La Voix

La Voix ("The Voice") of Secret Story is that of French voice animator Dominique Duforest.

Nominations and Evictions

Each week, in turn, the boys or girls go to the Confessional to nominate two people of the opposite sex that they want to face the public vote. The following is a table of their nominations:

^Note 1 : Only the women could nominate. The Triplets were allowed three nominations (one each), and they nominated Fred twice. ^Note 2 : On the men could nominate. The Triplets were considered as one housemate and could be nominated together. ^Note 3 : The nominations were cancelled and Laly and Nicolas were automatically put up for eviction by La Voix for revealing their secrets ^Note 4 : On the men could nominate. La Voix gave Erwan the opportunity to give one woman immunity. He chose Tatiana, thus she was unable to be nominated. ^Note 5 : Only the women could nominate. La Voix gave Tatiana the opportunity to give one man immunity. She chose Xavier, but did so in the Confessional, so the others couldn't hear her. All nominations against Xavier were discounted. Ophélie's first nomination counted as two votes against Xavier, but he was immune and so this was discounted. Maxime had 3, but the other boys were tied at two each, so the girls then went to a second round of voting to decide the second nominee. During the second round, Julien received 2 votes and as a result he joined Maxime in the vote. Erwan and Gabriel both received one vote. ^Note 6 : Only the men could nominate. ^Note 7 : Only the women could nominate. Maryline and Xavier were fake evicted by the producers and stayed in a secret bedroom to spy on their fellow housemates. ^Note 8 : For the first time, all contestants could nominate and be nominated. This was supposed to happen Week 7, after each sex had nominated three times, but due to the nominations in Week 3 being cancelled, it was moved to Week 8. As 4 housemates were equally nominated (Maryline, Maxime, the Triplets, and Xavier), there were two rounds of nominations to find the two housemates to face the public vote; Maryline and Maxime. ^Note 9 : Again, all contestants nominated and could be nominated. As a reward for his secret not having been exposed, Gabriel was given a double vote, which he used on Xavier. ^Note 10 : In the final week, there were no nominations. All the contestants faced the public vote and the chance of winning the €150,000 prize money.

Criticism and controversy