A couple months ago, L'Impératrice vocalist Flore Benguigui announced that she was leaving the French pop band after nine years, saying it was "physically and psychologically impossible" for her to carry on. The band promptly announced her replacement in the days to follow and are set to embark on a sprawling North American tour in the new year.
In a new interview with Mediapart, Benguigui has spoken at length about the conditions that led to her departure, claiming that she had actually lost her voice after being "love-bombed" and then "belittled and humiliated" by her former bandmates.
"I was always told that I was a bad singer, that I sang off-key, that I didn't sing loud enough," she recalled of her time in the band. "They were very nice to me in the beginning, but things changed when we started performing life."
Benguigui explained that the nature of her voice is "soft" and "aerial" — the sound she claimed L'Impératrice wanted for their albums, but took issue with in the live performance setting, where they wanted to perform with many instruments played very loudly. She said she could hardly hear herself during their earliest performances, and neither could the audience, so she took lessons to sing louder, which the singer alleges "changed the nature" of her voice.
Benguigui said she had also struggled with the band's desire to use pre-recorded vocal sequences to help her singing stand out above the instrumentals. "It felt like I was cheating and lying to the audience," she said, adding that her bandmates never saw a possibility for them to adapt to support her instead of the other way around: "L'Impératrice is not just about the music. It's also about the voice and the lyrics."
The vocalist said that, as the years went by, she lost all self-confidence and reached a point where she felt like she didn't even deserve to be in the band. She then did everything she could to become indispensable to her collaborators, including washing and ironing everyone's stage costumes. Benguigui said that she was "constantly being controlled, especially by two of the band members and the manager, who is also the band's label and editor. Even when I spoke onstage, everything had to be approved."
She continued, "It alternated between what we call love-bombing, when two of the band members would buy me gifts — they would keep buying me stuff spontaneously — and praising me, especially in front of other people. And suddenly, they would belittle me, humiliate me. Sometimes they would start screaming at me in front of the other band members," Benguigui claimed, adding that physical violence was also once threatened.
The singer also explained that the band didn't take weekends or holidays off "until very recently," so she was constantly feeling "isolated" in this environment with the band's five other core members — a number that grew to a total of nine men when they were touring. Benguigui said that she lost her voice in 2021 while recording a version of "Submarine" from their Tako Tsubo album with a classically trained bandmate who was particularly critical of her singing.
"At one point, I was supposed to hit high notes and my voice just snapped. I felt like I was suffocating," she remembered. "I couldn't catch my breath. I wasn't able to sing the song, and all he said was that if I had worked harder, I would have overcome my anxiety thanks to vocal techniques."
After seeing a wide array of practitioners and finding no physical issues with her vocal cords, Benguigui said her psychologist helped her realize that she had "completely lost her wind" from being mistreated within the band. She continued touring with the vocal sequences turned up louder, and every night suffering the humiliation of a vocalist losing their main working tool, which Benguigui said is also her "reason for living."
"I was depressed, I was taking anxiety medication," she said, explaining that she said she needed time off in summer 2023, toward the end of their stint on the road behind Tako Tsubo — but L'Impératrice were already booked for Coachella 2024, which meant they needed to write and record a new album.
She worked with a vocal coach and her voice returned, but she opened up about her struggle during a 2023 label meeting. Yet she ended up agreeing to commit to writing, composing and recording an album — this year's Pulsar — in three months, despite still being in "a very weak physical and mental state." While Benguigui's bandmates were allegedly initially excited about her agreeing to the record, she said they rejected many of her ideas, and there were a lot of creative differences.
"I had COVID, I had a bunch of illnesses," the vocalist said of getting pulled into the whirlwind of another album cycle, which began with their Coachella performances in March. "My body was telling me that although my voice was back, I needed a break." Benguigui concluded, "I knew I couldn't leave overnight, but if I didn't leave by the end of the summer, if I didn't leave before the next tour, I don't know how I could have made it out alive."
In response to Benguigui's allegations in the interview, her former L'Impératrice issued the following statement to the publication:
We discover the seriousness of the facts and feelings shared by Flore.
While we were a band, united for 9 years, we are saddened by this situation, to have to respond to Flore through the press. She still means a great deal to us, and we know how much the band owes her, both artistically and personally.
But the situations described by Flore do not correspond to the facts.
There was never any control over what she said. On the contrary, Flore has always expressed herself freely about her personal projects and the causes she defends, notably through her personal networks. As far as the band's statements are concerned, it was decided from the outset that decisions would be taken in a collegial and concerted manner. As far as the recording of the album, the launch of the tour and promotion are concerned, Flore has reaffirmed her determination to continue at each stage.
Finally, since the 1st concert in 2015, the "live" treatment of the vocals has been a collectively validated artistic decision, which has never called into question her qualities as a singer, composer and performer, nor her place in the band.
When Flore informed us of her decision to leave the band, we agreed to continue our exchanges within a constructive and mutually beneficial framework, with a shared desire to respect the future shape of L'Impératrice. We immediately respected his decision, regardless of the implications for the future of the project.
We wanted to continue the adventure of L'Impératrice, because we had to be there for the public and, above all, because our project and desire were still there, despite the ordeal of Flore's departure. L'Impératrice was an instrumental band, but Flore gave it a voice, and we want to keep that legacy alive.
If the investment and attention we gave her weren't enough, we can only regret it. In any case, we wish her all the best for the future.