Lopez Blogs

The show kicked off with a tribute to season 4 winner, the late and much missed Gregory Lemarchal who very sadly passed away earlier this year. Most of the singers did quite well on this song, I thought, although it's always difficult at this stage as there are too many of them to take in. Videos are being added over at http://staracademy.tf1.fr as I write.

Introduction of les profs - Alexia Laroche-Joubert (ready to drop any minute - she could give birth in the chateau) and - would you believe it - Raphaelle Ricci is back!!!!! Kamel Ouali! Richard Cross! Christophe Pinna! Jasmine Roy! Matthieu Gonet! Pascal Negre, Passi and Yvan Cassar are also this year's professional jury members.

Les marraines: this year there is no godfather, but there are two godmothers - Kylie Minogue and Celine Dion. I was quite impressed by Kylie's little French speech in the video. The moral of the story is, if you need to improve your French, get a French boyfriend. Mmmm....just thinking, my Swedish badly needs improving...! Anyway, Celine Dion? I'm not really thrilled about that one, but with any luck we'll only see her a couple of times during the series.