Cyril Hanouna

Cyril Valéry Isaac Hanouna (born 23 September 1974 in Paris) is a French radio and television presenter, writer, author, columnist, producer, singer and occasional actor and comedian of Tunisian origins. He is best known for hosting the popular French TV show Touche Pas à Mon Poste.

Hanouna was born into a Jewish family, he is the son of a general practitioner and a saleswoman who arrived in France from Tunis in 1969. He first studied to become a doctor like his father. After having difficulties in high school, he decided to study management to become a chartered accountant, but he later gave up his studies.

Hanouna made his television debut in 1999 on the television channel Comédie+ where he wrote the lyrics for the trailers. Hanouna became a television presenter in 2002 when he co-hosted the third series of La Grosse Émission alongside comedian duo Kad et Olivier. In February 2002 he was approached by RTL Radio and he hosted a radio show called Planet Arthur alongside Manu Levy and Valérie Bénaïm. In 2003 he hosted the morning show Morning Live on M6.

Since 2008 Hanouna has been associated with the Eurovision Song Contest. At the 2008 Contest, he presented the French tele-votes, and then provided the French commentary for the 2009 and 2010 Contests alongside Julien Courbet and Stéphane Bern.

Currently, he is a host on Europe 1, and on television with Touche Pas à Mon Poste (up to 2012 on France 4), before moving with the whole TV show team to D8 since the new channel was launched on 7 October. The channel also bought the rights for Nouvelle Star, the French version of the Pop Idol Series, and Hanouna became the host of the show.

In 2011, he acted in the third installment of La Vérité si je mens!.

Nowadays he is the producer of his own entertainment company, H2O Production, where he works on some of the most popular TV shows of C8 (as D8 was renamed). He is also active on almost all channels which are owned by Vincent Bolloré (Direct 8, Direct Star and Canal+). In 2015 Bolloré spent 250 million Euros to keep Hanouna on his team.

In 2019, he proposed a television show which he would co-host with a French politician to address the concerns of French citizens, a reaction to the yellow vests movement.

Cyril Hanouna has often received satirical awards from Gérards de la Télévision: Industrial Mistake Award 2007, Worst Presenter 2013 and 2014, The Presenter Who Doesn’t Need Drugs 2016. In February 2016, he was drawn by Charlie Hebdo as a mosquito sucking out children’s brains. …

Source: Article “Cyril Hanouna” from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.