As the 94th edition of Miss France approaches, the TF1 group was ordered to pay damages to two former beauty contest candidates. Carla Bonesso, Miss Aquitaine 2018, and Manon Jean-Mistral, Miss Corsica 2018, both contenders for the title of Miss France 2019, filed a complaint against the channel for having filmed them topless, without their knowledge, during the retransmission of this ceremony five years ago. As revealed The Parisian Wednesday December 13, 2023, the two women aged 18 and 20 at the time were changing in the locker rooms, among the other regional Misses in the running, when the eight million live viewers were able to briefly glimpse their bare chests. According to the complainants, these videos were then used on pornographic sites, which would have damaged their image. The Lille judicial court ordered the TF1 group and the company Endemol to pay them 20,000 euros, or 40,000 euros each, an insufficient sum according to their lawyer.
Sylvie Tellier apologized
To immerse viewers behind the scenes of Miss France, TF1 cameras filmed certain sequences in the locker rooms, in this case within the Zénith de Lille, without the consent of the undressed candidates. A process that Manon Jean-Mistral denounced in the columns of Corsica-Morningin September 2019. “When you type my name on the Internet, what comes out is ‘scandal’. Do you think it’s normal that nine months later, we’re still on a porn site?”had denounced the native of Porto-Vecchio, specifying that she had not had “neither return nor apology” of the organizing committee of the beauty contest. Former president of the Miss France committee, Sylvie Tellier reacted a few days after the election was broadcast, who had seen the coronation of Vaimalama Chaves that year. “I wanted to apologize to the production and to the candidates whose private lives were revealed. This should not have happened. It was a big mistake on our part and it ruined this show a little.”she declared on 1 p.m. on TF1, on December 17, 2018.