Véronique Cloutier (often known just as “Véro”) is one of the first people who comes to mind whenever I think of Francophone TV.  She’s just a bit older than me (she was born in 1974), and so watching her all these years makes you feel that you’ve lived aspects of adulthood at the same time.   Like all of us, she’s lived through ups and downs – with the difference being that she has been in the public eye during several high profile and difficult challenges in her private life.  I really believe that has given her a human persona that resonates with the public, creating a feeling that she’s “just one of us”.  She’s one of my favorite fun-loving personalities on television – and she has the respect and adoration of the public.  Even if my first series of posts had not been a response to “The Poll that Shocked!”, Véro would still have been one of my very first posts.

Véro first became known to youth on MusiquePlus in the early 1990’s (a 24-hour music video TV channel similar to MuchMusic), when she hosted a video-clip show.  During the same era, she worked on various TV shows on different stations – and quickly became one of those faces people saw everywhere.

But it was her later show, La Fureur on Radio-Canada, which really drove her celebrity status with Francophones and French speaking youth from coast-to-coast.  It aired for around a decade.   La Fureur was a karaoke singing competition in which a group of guys were pitted against a group of ladies in a sing-off, to see who could spontaneously sing famous songs while getting the words right.  Celebrity stars were always invited to participate, and it was filmed in front of a live studeo audience cheering madly for their teams.   It basically was a a huge screaming, singing, and laughing party on TV each week with hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people turning in for each episode.  Because of the audience sizes, the show’s success, and the guest celebrities the show attracted, it thrust Cloutier into a league of her own. 

Being a household name, she took on more and more roles in the public limelight.  She has been regularly featured in television commercials.  For the last several years, she has hosted Les Enfants de la télé on Radio-Can, a show in which celebrities of yesterday are the guests and participate in fun exchanges and activities (her husband produces the show).

Véro is also a successful radio-host on Rythme FM, one of the more popular radio stations in Montreal, with affiliate stations throughout Québec.  It could be said she is just as famous in radio spheres as TV spheres.

Cloutier became a recurring host for numerous televised award ceremonies, Gala de l’ADISQ, (similar to the Juno and Academy Awards), les Prix Gémaux (similar to the Gemini Awards), and has been the award recipient of numerous awards.   As a testament to her popularity and her work in general, she repeatedly wins some of the highest industry awards, including Les Prix Artis in which the public themselves choose the annual award recipients.  It’s particularly notable that she continued to win the public’s favorite person after having gone through very public difficulties on the personal and professional front — a true testament to how she difficulties with dignity, responsibility and integrity.

Her name has become synonymous with the annual New Years’ Eve Le Bye Bye TV broadcast on Radio-Canada.  It was a comedy broadcast which ran on New Years’ Eve in a skit format – drawing in much of the home New Years’ Eve viewership that evening. 

I haven’t mentioned Véro’s husband to this point, Louis Morissette (a celebrity himself), but she herself has stated numerous times that her work has been a team effort between the two, professionally as well as on the personal front.  Morissette is a successful comedian and producer. In many ways, without detracting from either of their individual successes, they have become a power-couple on the pop-culture stage, and have been together for much of their respective careers.  Le Bye Bye has been co-jointly hosted by Cloutier and Morissette.  Their popularity could be, in some ways, a type of “BrAngelina” status in Québec (did I get the spelling of that right?).

When conducting your own, TV, radio, web and video searches, please do so through officially approved sites and do not access pirated material.   Happy viewing!