EPISODE 15: Natalie Richard
On this episode of Reinvention of the VJ Erica Ehm has some laughs with Natalie Richard who shares her hilarious journey from Musique Plus to MuchMusic, and the many twists and turns along the way.
Natalie reminisces about Mike Myers changing the trajectory of her career, why she didn’t date while working at Much, the responsibility of hosting French Kiss, and how she turned a passion for wine into a new career.
Show Transcript
Speaker 1:
Got some good rock and roll coming up in here for you now.
Speaker 2:
Hey, guys from Kiss have arrived. They snuck in the back door.
Speaker 3:
You spend your whole life during the first few albums and then suddenly everybody needs your attention.
Speaker 4:
Erica Ehm.
Speaker 5:
Thanks MuchMusic.
Speaker 4:
Reinvention of the VJ. A flashback on the career that made them who they are today. On this episode ...
Natalie Richard:
So the Mickey Mouse Club. You're just a child and they take you in the Mickey Mouse Club and you live in this world that's a fantasy in a way and the image of my life. At 50, what do you do now and looking at the world ...
Speaker 4:
This is Erica Ehm's Reinvention of the VJ. Now here's Erica Ehm.
Erica Ehm:
Hi there. I'm Erica Ehm. Thank you so much for tuning into this episode of my Reinvention of the VJ podcast. Today's show, I thought it would be fun to start the show a little differently with this message from a fan of this podcast.
Speaker 7:
Hi, Erica. I love this podcast. It's so amazing to hear all the stories, all the behind stories from all of VJs over the years on MuchMusic. I just wanted to see if you could also include MusiquePlus because here in Ontario, I know we got to see some of those videos and see some of the VJ's that crossed over, like Juliet Powell. What did I always wonder about VJ's? Like everything. I was curious about where you hung out. We already heard about that.
Speaker 7:
I was curious about what you did in your spare time, how you got your job, what your parents thought and what your kids think about that now. Anyways, I love it. Keep continuing and power on. Bye.
Erica Ehm:
Come one, how awesome is that? Thank you so much. Unfortunately, you didn't leave your name, but you definitely made some great points and some really good questions, which we will get to today on today's show. On today's show, we will tap into MusiquePlus with an interview with one of the VJ's who started her career in French at MusiquePlus, and then bravely moved from Quebec to 299 Queen Street West in Toronto, to join the team in English at MuchMusic.
Erica Ehm:
To bring a little French Kiss to Reinvention of the VJ podcast, today's guest is my very good friend Natalie Richard. But before we jump into our interview, I want to thank you so much for joining and listening to the show today and for subscribing to this podcast, and for leaving so many of these heartfelt reviews and messages. I get them all. It really is great knowing that you're loving this podcast. As you can tell, I get a little excited when I get your voice message and you can continue to do that. Just call me at (833) 972-7272 and leave a voice message, which we'll play on the show.
Erica Ehm:
If this is your first time tuning into the show. Let me just give you a bit of background, Reinvention of the VJ podcast is my up-close and personal conversations with the eclectic and talented personalities you may have grown up with on Much or MusiquePlus. Some I worked closely with like Natalie. Others came way after my time. While all of our personalities and approaches were very different. There is one thing that we all have in common; each of us played a small part in Canada's most influential pop culture platform.
Erica Ehm:
Then we left at different times and for different reasons. Each of us set off on our next adventure. It's that story of what happens after much, the reinvention, the resilience, the luck, the tough times, the creativity and the perspective. That's what intrigues me. My chat with Natalie today will probably be a bit of a trip down memory lane for you, definitely will be for me, but I'm also hoping that you find some interesting tidbits or insights into what it takes for you to get what you want in life, what you need to reinvent, or maybe deal with tough times and if you have to redefine what success is.
Erica Ehm:
Listen, I know that a lot of us are going through some challenging times, and as we grow up, we're forced to reevaluate priorities and choices in our lives. Maybe what Natalie has gone through will inspire you in some small way to look at life with new perspective, which brings me to today's guest. Of all the people I worked with at MuchMusic, its Natalie, who has become my lifelong friend and her story of reinvention is pretty awesome. I've so much respect for Natalie.
Erica Ehm:
This is a special treat for me to chat with Natalie Richard. Bonjour Natalie. Welcome to Reinvention of the VJ. I'm so happy to finally interview you.
Natalie Richard:
Oh, I'm so happy to see you. [inaudible 00:05:10] been so long and hear you and congratulations on this very, very great idea. A lot of people are wondering about the VJ's. It was such a marking an important era for a lot of people. I can see it here in Quebec, because now I'm back here in the beautiful region of Quebec. I can see it when I meet people. It's something that you grow up not thinking.
Natalie Richard:
You become a famous person one day when you're 20 and you don't realize what it is, but as you can see for yourself, Erica Ehm will always be Erica Ehm no matter what you do, years and years and years after we were VJ's on MusiquePlus and MuchMusic.
Erica Ehm:
That's what I want to talk to you about. I want to talk to you about those days on Much. I want to talk about all the amazing things that you have created for yourself over the years. I have so much respect for you and also I want to talk about, how did you become Natalie Richard? How did you become that person? Before we get started, I want to say something to you, I guess publicly, which I've said to you privately, which was when you and I were working at Much, when you first started, I did not like you. Do you remember that?
Natalie Richard:
Yes. You thought I was too nice.
Erica Ehm:
That's right and I [crosstalk 00:06:28].
Natalie Richard:
There must have been something wrong with me.
Erica Ehm:
That's right. I was like, "What's up with that chick. She's so nice. What does she want? What's her ulterior motive?" Then the longer we worked together, I realized, "Holy crap, you really are that genuinely nice and kind." I wonder, did MuchMusic change that? Did you have to become tougher or lose some of your magic because of anything that occurred during Much?
Natalie Richard:
No, no, no, not at all. This didn't have any effect on my heart or my soul or anything like that. I think that's why I did TV for such a long time. It sort of flew through me, and I never really got involved personally in the effect of what it could create. As you know, some people change personality when they become famous. We've met some and they act differently. That was never my case. For me, it was just a job. I felt privileged to do it. It was really hard for me to do television after MuchMusic and MusiquePlus, because it was organized television.
Natalie Richard:
I realized later what I liked is the lifestyle, I am a musician. I was a songwriter at the time. Communication is my thing, so it was perfect for our generation to be right there and it felt like I was the chosen one. It was just a hoot. It was like every day waking up, going to work, going to play. I think I realized now more than ever, how lucky we were and how special it was, because as much as you think that this is going to go on forever, when I was like 21, but, "Oh my God, I imagine when I'm like 50, I'm going to be so famous and so rich."
Natalie Richard:
You think that this is going to go on forever, which is not at all the case. As you know, both of us and all the VJ's had to reinvent themselves. In my case many times too, I had many lives like a cat.
Erica Ehm:
It's interesting you said, you realized how lucky you were. I am going to call you on that or slightly disagree, because I don't think that any of us were particularly lucky, except maybe Amanda Walsh who was discovered as a waitress in Hudson, Quebec where I grew up. There was a bit of luck there, but I think if we go back, which is what I want to do and talk about Natalie before MuchMusic, we'll see that you put in the work and built a path that took you there.
Natalie Richard:
It's so true Erica. But you know what? You just flashed a story in my head. I don't know if I ever told you in person. The reason why I wanted to be a VJ in the first place, it was because of you.
Erica Ehm:
What?
Natalie Richard:
I don't know if I told you that story. Yes. MusiquePlus started two years after MuchMusic, right? MuchMusic was '84. MusiquePlus came in '86 and in those days in Quebec, we only had MuchMusic and the English part. You know Montreal, you grew up in Quebec, so you know there's the French part and the English part. It's always been like that. In the Western part, let's say MuchMusic was a different cable provider, so we had MuchMusic there. But in the Eastern part, which was mostly French part, MuchMusic wasn't there because it was mostly French people living there which is strange, but this is how it was.
Natalie Richard:
I had a boyfriend. His father was living in Westmount. We used to do motorcycle together. I would go to his house. His father's house was ... His father was never there. It was an apartment, and he had the cable and he had MuchMusic. I remember sitting there and watching MuchMusic and watching you and going, "Oh, this is what I want to do." I was watching this music channel. I was a musician. I was a songwriter. I was studying communication, journalism and I saw this and I thought, "Okay, this is what I want to do." My boyfriend at the time poor guy he was like, "Okay, can we go out now?"
Natalie Richard:
I was like, "Wait, wait, wait." It was the beginning of reality TV. Our reality TV can be so addictive, and it was also the voice of a generation when it started, a generation that didn't have a voice. When you look back, there was four TV channels and it was made for, it was really boring when you think of it. The young people's shows were so structured and well-behaved, and there was a rebellion going on in the young people at the time. I think it was very kind rebellion, but there was something more that needed to be expressed, and it went right into my heart.
Natalie Richard:
Then I had this idea and that's probably how it started because after that, this is the only thing I had in mind. I was even telling people, "I'm moving to Toronto," because I moved to Toronto at one point. I went to work at the CBC and I was going, "I'm moving to Toronto." They would say, "What are you doing?" I would say, "I'm going to work as MuchMusic."
Erica Ehm:
Really?
Natalie Richard:
I said that to people and my boyfriend at the time he had an interview with, oh my God, I have a blank now. The guy, what's his name? The wonderful guy, he passed away not long ago. He was the technical director of the entire MuchMusic.
Erica Ehm:
Jay Spitzer?
Natalie Richard:
Dana Lee. It was MuchMusic at the time when you were on the East side of Queen and he had an interview with Dana Lee. I went along because he finished his degree in television and he wanted to work somewhere, and we'd moved to Toronto because he couldn't find a job in Montreal. Then he got me in the CBC, the French CBC and I started doing the weather on the morning show. I did the weather on TV, because the weather guy was always sick. That's how I started doing television. We went to meet Dana, and then I couldn't speak English very well at the time obviously.
Natalie Richard:
He was passing the interview and then Dana turned onto me and he said, "What about you? What do you do?" I'm like, "Oh me, I blah, blah, blah on TV. This is what I do." I did not even know how to not speak English properly. This is how funny it was. Then what happened is that, while I was working at the French CBC in Toronto, they needed a VJ on the French MusiquePlus, which was at the time, remember broadcast from the MuchMusic studios on 299 Queen West. You were finishing your live television at 8:00 PM and MusiquePlus was going on the last shot, the VJ with the light and everything and the stool was staying.
Natalie Richard:
Let's say you, Eric finished your last throw at 8:00 PM or 10 to 8:00 two videos, and at 8:00 PM, the French crews coming in and it was the French VJ that was going on for four hours live.
Erica Ehm:
Wasn't Sonia Benezra the first person?
Natalie Richard:
Yes, I think it was Sonia. Marc Carpentier left, another guy and it was Paul Sarrazin, Sonia, Catherine Vachon. One of these, Marc Carpentier, Catherine Vachon left and they were looking for somebody. Because all the French crew, the French VJ's were shooting out of Toronto. A lot of the French camera people were working at the French CBC at the time as well. They came to me and they said, "You have to be the next VJ. You have to come and we'll do an interview. We'll do your audition in the MuchMusic Studio, because at eight o'clock we can do this at midnight."
Natalie Richard:
I went at midnight after everybody goes to the bar for a drink, and then after they stayed in, we used the studio and they did my demo tape, because they all wanted me to be the next VJ on MusiquePlus at that time, not MuchMusic obviously.
Erica Ehm:
You know what's interesting about that, I had no idea. I didn't know any of that. How long have we known each other, 35 years? I knew nothing about that. But what's so interesting for me is that, those camera guys said to you, "You should be the VJ. Let us do the tape." There is something about you, Natalie, that kindness that I mentioned that I didn't trust initially, because I thought you were so nice, is in fact your superpower. It is what ... You work super hard.
Natalie Richard:
Yeah, yeah.
Erica Ehm:
You're very bright. You're gorgeous. All those things work in your favor. But I think that there is very unique about your generosity of spirit that really connects with people, so people want to work with you.
Natalie Richard:
Thank you.
Erica Ehm:
This is a conversation about our careers, but also other people's careers. How do I get ahead? How can someone else get ahead in life? I really do think, and I wonder what you think about this, but I think that if you're not a jerk and if you're good to work with people will remember you and they'll work with you again when they can. Is that your experience?
Natalie Richard:
Absolutely. What is it that Ozzy Osborne once said, he said ... Excuse me, the word, the S word on people's head on your way up, it gets back on yourself or on your face, on your way down. I believe that. We've seen it. I don't know for your experience, but I've seen people who would think they were like it, and they had like a very bad attitude and they were not nice with anybody, because they were in this lucky or special place. I don't know, if your career starts not going the right way, a lot of them disappeared because nobody wants to work with you when you're very good they won't want to work with you when things are not going the right way, definitely.
Erica Ehm:
You worked from 8:00 PM to midnight at 299 West where our paths really didn't cross at that point, because I wasn't working in the evenings. You never shot MusiquePlus in Montreal? You only worked ...
Natalie Richard:
Yes, we did some prerecording and we had a small office where the Buonanotte Restaurant, moved in for 25 years after that. But we had a small studio office in Montreal on St. Laurent Boulevard. But with the TV VJ, Sonia, Paul Sarrazin and myself who would fly Air Canada. I became one of the first members of Aeroplan. Aeroplan at that time started, and we were flying in and we were sleeping in the same hotel room in the Carlton. It was up on top of the old Maple Leaf Garden on Carlton Street.
Natalie Richard:
One week it was me, one week it was Paul and one week it was Sonia. I think they rented that room. That was our room, but we never left anything there and they cleaned it every day, but it was the room where we stayed. For three days we would be in Toronto every week or every second week, and we would prerecord some of the shows in Montreal.
Erica Ehm:
Ah, so you still lived in Montreal and you just flew in for your shifts, stayed in a hotel and flew home?
Natalie Richard:
Right, every week or every week and a half, I would come in Toronto let's say on Tuesday night and I would fly back on Saturday night or Sunday morning, something like that because I used to live in Toronto when I worked at the CBC. But when I got the job ... my boyfriend at the time got a job also in Montreal on a big TV show, so we both moved to Montreal at the time. Then I was going back and forth. It's almost like I never left Toronto, because I came to Toronto first time in 1986. Then I was going back and forth just staying in a hotel every week.
Natalie Richard:
Then I came back in 1991 for MuchMusic. Then I think I left Toronto in 1998. So we can say that from '86 to '98, I was pretty much in Toronto. As much as I always felt, Toronto was more of a city to me than Montreal, because I spent more of my years, more years in the city of Toronto than in Montreal,
Erica Ehm:
What happened? How did you transfer from having a career as a French host on MusiquePlus to someone saying, "Hey, let's get that French person to come speak English on MuchMusic?
Natalie Richard:
It's a great story, because we did a lot of things together with MuchMusic, collaborations, maybe not so much with you, but we came in [inaudible 00:19:05] the studio, eventually MuchMusic. MusiquePlus got their license. They had their own studio in Montreal in 1989 and then we worked there. But then I don't know how it was for you, but it was very, very little money for us VJ's at the time. We're in our 20s and it was like, "You're lucky to be here. Here is like so much money and don't complain."
Natalie Richard:
I remember going to, we were interviewed on big networks and they would say, "Hey, is that Natalie Richard? No it can't be. Look at her car, it's all raunchy. Can't be here." I took on another job. They asked me to do a street TV show on a street TV channel. I say that because it was very, very different. It was live television and we were in the environment. It was not the official TV, so I accepted. I had no contract with MusiquePlus whatsoever or signed any deals or anything like that. Then when they found out that I signed for this, they said, "You can't work on MusiquePlus and one weekend a month go work for this other TV station," because I needed to make a little bit more money.
Natalie Richard:
I thought it was interesting. I wanted to do everything. They said, "No, you can't do this." I was like, "Well, I signed a contract already and blah, blah, blah," and they said, "No, you can't. You have to resign." I'm like, "Really? You're not going to replace me?" They said, "Yeah, yeah." "Okay, sure, you can't do this." Then, so I quit because I couldn't be told, "You're going to stay here and you can't do this." I have no contract and it was complicated. I decided to move on at this point.
Erica Ehm:
You quit MusiquePlus?
Natalie Richard:
Yes. I quit MusiquePlus because they wanted me to ... I had signed a contract and they were like, "Well, you can't go there." I said, "Well, I signed the contract," and I had pressure. I signed the contract and I didn't have a contract with MusiquePlus. They were like, "Well, then go." I'm like, "Well, I'm going to have to go, but I can say. I can do both," and they're like, "No, you can't be on two ..." Anyway, so I left. That was fine. I was moving on with my life. I went on tour for the peacekeepers in Israel, in the Golan Heights.
Natalie Richard:
I went to Cyprus and I did all kinds of things I always wanted to do. It was fabulous. Then one day phone rings at my house in Montreal. Erica, I was like, at this point I was working two jobs. I was being a clown with the balloons, because now I was famous person, so I was not allowed to work. I was not allowed to work anywhere because people were like, "You either work on TV. You can't work in a restaurant setting where people know you." It's crazy how we became so famous right away when we started this. It was like a big, we had no idea.
Natalie Richard:
Then I was famous. People were following me, recognizing me anywhere, so I couldn't work. I found a job in a balloon, for a birthday thing and they hired me. I remember when I went in, there was two guys preparing the balloons and I was going to be the clown, was delivering with the white face, delivering the balloons and everything. I was doing singing telegrams for them for birthdays, because I was a singer. Then I remember the people in the back and they were looking at me and they hated me.
Natalie Richard:
They were like, "Oh no." I said to them, I said, "Why? What is it?" They said, "When you came in, we were certain." We was like, "No, don't hire her. She's a star. She's not going to work. She's just going to come here and not work." There was this judgment of me, because I was on TV, I wouldn't do the work. I was working so hard and I always worked really hard. They apologized and said, "Well, we're sorry. You work so hard and you're so good in our team."
Erica Ehm:
You're so nice.
Natalie Richard:
I was so nice. I was delivering balloons during the day, and at night I was doing a dinner theater in Montreal, a dinner theater show that I loved doing. It was called the Haunted House. Some people have been there, it's destroyed now, but it was at [inaudible 00:22:57]. It was a spooky dinner theater. You would go in, it was like a haunted house and the characters were dead characters that would come back from the dead. It was all a [inaudible 00:23:08] and a very theatrical, it was a big live show with music and people would eat in the dark and we scare them, and it was so much fun.
Natalie Richard:
I would become at night Mata Hari was my character that I developed for this show. I would go in and at night I was doing this Mata Hari persona in this haunted house, dinner theater. Sometimes I had to leave. We had a break in between ... for the last tour, there was two hours, an hour and a half and there was a break that was less spectacle dance or something. After we had the last round to come back to and I would sometimes go with my car, do a singing telegram and come back and do the last ...
Erica Ehm:
Oh my God.
Natalie Richard:
That's how hard I was working.
Erica Ehm:
Can you give me an example of a singing telegram. Do you remember the kinds of things that you were saying? I'm going to put you on the spot.
Natalie Richard:
I was trying to do jazz standards. Randy Lee was one of my coach at the time, so I would use the jazz standard. I would call the person and say, "Okay, so what do your husband like? "Oh, he likes this?" I would change the words, like "Summer time and the living is easy." I would say, "Erica, and you are so pretty. All your family is here and they love you too death. They wanted me as your fairy godmother to tell you, we love you," and stuff like that [inaudible 00:24:31] my voice [inaudible 00:24:32].
Erica Ehm:
That's so cool. You just made that up on the spot.
Natalie Richard:
Yeah. I was doing this at night and then I was owning a house and I had to pay the rent and all that stuff. This is what I find, I was always dressed in a character, so nobody would ever recognize me. Sometimes in the spooky dinner theater, they would say, "Mata Hari, I recognize your voice. Weren't you on MusiquePlus before?" That was like, I would take my [inaudible 00:24:59] accent of the dead and go, "No, you're wrong." Then the thunder would roar and would protect my anonymity, my identity, because the voice, people recognize the voice. I'm sure it's the same for of you, our voice, our laugh.
Erica Ehm:
That's so funny. It's interesting, I have to say, I can really relate to that because, I sometimes wish I could just get a job. I've been doing YMC, for example, my website and my agency for so many years. Sometimes I want to stop and just do a job.
Natalie Richard:
Yes.
Erica Ehm:
Go work at Starbucks or something, but I can't.
Natalie Richard:
Erica, people won't hire you. I tried so many times to apply for communication jobs in real companies. I had all the qualification. Nobody would hire me [crosstalk 00:25:58].
Erica Ehm:
Teresa Roncon, I don't know if you know this, but Teresa after she left Much, she went to school and she got her communications degree, PR degree and she is still working in PR. She works at the Heart and Stroke. I did a big interview with her for this the show. I think it's episode number six or seven. She was able to do it. She was able to go into the mainstream workforce, but very few people are able to make that transition. You're right, it's interesting. Okay. We got off track. You were working at [crosstalk 00:26:38] Mata Hari and so how did you end up at-
Natalie Richard:
At MuchMusic?
Erica Ehm:
... MuchMusic?
Natalie Richard:
Well, that's the thing. I just finished that, the tour, the peacekeeper tour in the Middle East for one month. Then I did this clown thing and Mata Hari at night. I was in my house one morning and the phone rings and it's John Martin-
Erica Ehm:
John Martin who was my boss.
Natalie Richard:
He called me at home. I don't know how he got my number and he's like, "Natalie, it's John Martin." I'm like, "John, how are you?" He goes, "Oh, well, we need a VJ that's 20 years old with 20 years of experience, so we thought of you. Do you want to come in and work with us?" And I'm like-
Erica Ehm:
That sounds just like him, 20 years old and 20 years of experience. That's fantastic.
Natalie Richard:
[inaudible 00:27:25] Then I said, "No, no, no, thank you, John. Thank you so much. But you know, I've been there doing the VJ's thing with MusiquePlus," and then I hang up and then my best friend from Paris was following my career, and he was taking news, "How are you?" He moved to Paris to do a big TV show there. The guy I moved into to Toronto with at the time, my boyfriend at the time years before, we're still friends. He said to me, he said, and I said, "Guess what? John Martin called me to ask me to be a VJ on MuchMusic."
Natalie Richard:
He said, "What did you say?" I said, "I said No. I've been there, done that. Got the t-shirt." He goes, "Okay, wait a minute. You are a clown and you work in a balloon shop, you deliver screen telegrams and John Martin calls you and you say, no." He said, "Now, take a deep breath. Hang up the phone with me and call him right back." I'm like, "Okay. I think I'll do that." He says, "Yes." He said, "Call him and tell him sorry. I don't know why I said no, but yes, I [inaudible 00:28:34]."
Erica Ehm:
What did you say to him when you got [inaudible 00:28:38].
Natalie Richard:
So I called him back and he goes-
Erica Ehm:
How do you do that? You just say no to someone-
Natalie Richard:
[inaudible 00:28:44].
Erica Ehm:
... and you have to call him back. What did you say to him?
Natalie Richard:
Oh, I said, "John, hi, it's Natalie. So sorry. Yes, I'm sorry. I was taken out of the blue. I'm sorry I said no. I really do want to come and meet you to work at Much Music and everything. He said, "Okay." He gave me a meeting and then I took the train the following week. I went to meet him at the Fryers.
Erica Ehm:
Now, the reason why you say the Fryer is, John Martin our boss at the time was famous for basically working out of a bar across the street from MuchMusic. He took it as his office. I think he had a seat in the back of the restaurant that became his office-
Natalie Richard:
Exactly.
Erica Ehm:
... and he took all of his business meetings and he even got phone calls there. There were no cell phones. They would call the bar and they'd yell, "John, phone."
Natalie Richard:
It was amazing. If you wanted to meet him, this is where you met him in his office, the Fryers, I went there and met with him one day and then they were offering me ... I knew Toronto. I knew how it was to live there. I knew how it cost to be famous, because you have to have different things. It's crazy because you're never home. You have to eat out, you travel, you have to dress. Nobody provided us with clothes at the time.
Erica Ehm:
No wardrobe.
Natalie Richard:
[Crosstalk 00:30:14] makeup. We did our own makeup at the time. I knew all this was very expensive and living in Toronto, more expensive than Montreal. Then we could never reach an agreement on the salary I would get. They were basically offering me almost the same thing that I was getting at MusiquePlus to live in Toronto. I knew I was not going to be able to survive, not with this lifestyle because you're always traveling. This is more expensive than a normal life, where you just have a regular schedule and everything.
Natalie Richard:
Everything is more expensive. You have to go to the airport. You know how it's like. After three days of negotiation, let's say Wednesday afternoon we met for an hour or two hours with Nancy and another Thursday and on Friday again. They were always offering me the same thing. I thought, "Oh, this is not going to work. That's so too bad." I was very good friends with Steven Anthony, our Steve Anthony. I called him and I said, "Steve, I'm leaving. It's not going to work out, because we cannot agree on the terms and stuff and that."
Natalie Richard:
We used to hang out in the place for drinks. It was very popular with martinis at the time. I don't remember the name of this bar, but there was a martini bar. It was in a basement. They had an old telephone, like a black telephone with the [crosstalk 00:31:30] and we're served the martinis. Steve said, "Well, before you take your train, let's go for a martini." That was in fashion in those days in the '90s, early '90s. I meet Steve there and I tell him what happened, and I go, "Well, I'm going back home and it's not going to work out."
Natalie Richard:
Then he says, "You better call Moses before you take off, because he'll be very upset if you leave and you don't tell him." I'm like, "Hey, you're right," because Moses was so upset that I left MusiquePlus without telling him. This disagreement thing, Moses was like, "You should have called me. We should have worked it out." I'm very proud. When they said to me, "Oh, well, if you're not happy leave," and I left. It's a bit of my temper.
Erica Ehm:
It was also a power play on their part. They were daring you and you stood up to them. Good on you Natalie. Good on you. You got to be a clown because you stood up to them.
Natalie Richard:
Well, this is very much my personality, I guess. Anyway, so Steve reminded me that Moses was very upset, when he found out that I had left without telling him, because Moses cares a lot about his people. I said, "Yeah, I'm going to call him." The girl from the bar, she gave me the phone, the black phone with the [foreign language 00:32:46], the dial, that's what it's called. I pick the phone. I call MuchMusic, reception, "Hello, can I speak with Moses Znaimer please?" "Yes. One moment please." Then I get Moses on the phone.
Natalie Richard:
It's Friday five o'clock, I said, "Moses, it's Natalie, how are you?" I go, "Well, I want to tell you bye, because I'm going to take my train at 7:00 and it won't work, because we talked and couldn't get an agreement." He goes, "What happened? What do you want?" I'm like, "What do you mean?" I said, "Well, it's not enough money. I won't be able to survive in Toronto with what they're offering me." He said, "How much do you need?" I said, I knew exactly what I needed and it was not over. It was just-
Erica Ehm:
Knowing you it probably too low, knowing you.
Natalie Richard:
I had a standard, like an average and I couldn't go lower down than. I said that that number and Moses said, "Okay." I'm like, "Okay?" He said, "Yes, you'll have it." I said, "Okay, well, I knew that was so to find myself an apartment." He said, "Okay, I'll give you six months' rent, but not more than $800. But I want you in the studio on Monday morning. That's it." I'm like, "Okay. Okay, bye." I hang up. Then Steve looks at me and he goes, "What happened?" I said, "Well, Moses said that I have to come and he wants me on the floor on Monday, and there it is."
Erica Ehm:
Natalie when you say on the floor, he doesn't literally mean on the floor. He means in front of the cameras. A lot of people may go, what do you mean he wants you on the floor?
Natalie Richard:
[inaudible 00:34:32] always say on the floor in French, on the floor means on the obviously on the stage.
Erica Ehm:
On the stage, right.
Natalie Richard:
On the stage.
Erica Ehm:
That's crazy.
Natalie Richard:
Yeah, so that was very ... That's how it happened.
Erica Ehm:
You never had a lawyer or an agent negotiate for you?
Natalie Richard:
No, no, no. I did this always on my own. As you said, maybe I didn't ask for enough, but I was happy with what I got. Then I came home by train four hours later, five hours later, midnight I'm home. I tell my boyfriend, "Okay, I'm moving to Toronto on Monday. Sorry, bye-bye. Packed my car and on Monday morning it was in the winter, because I remember it was in November. There was a big snow storm in Montreal. I arrived with all my big snow boots and my hat, my winter hat. I get into MuchMusic studio.
Natalie Richard:
My car is parked in front with all my stuff in it, all that I own. Even though I have like an ironing board. There's no cats or dogs, but everything I own is in my car and it's in front of MuchMusic. I go in and they're like, "Oh my you're coming from the great north." In Toronto you walk in shoes. I had all this winter apparel on me. They were like, I said, "Yeah, no, but I'm coming to ..." I think it was Monday. I was there and then they said, "Well, there is a big party tonight at the Phoenix. There's a record launch. You have to come."
Natalie Richard:
I said, "Yeah, but first I have to look for an apartment for myself," and everybody started laughing, Craig and [inaudible 00:36:02] are like, "Hah, hah." I said, "What? I'm going to look for an apartment this afternoon." He goes, "No, this is Toronto. You don't look for an apartment like this." I had a meeting with this older lady who had an apartment on Balmoral Street, up Avenue road on the 8th floor. I was hoping this would work and they were laughing. I said, "Okay, well watch me then.
Natalie Richard:
I'm going to go and if I see you at the party, I'll change and everything without the [inaudible 00:36:29] thing, it's because I got my apartment," and they were laughing like, "Ah, the girl from Montreal, French girl, she thinks she can find an apartment." Anyways, I get to the apartment. This lady was absolutely awesome. I looked at the apartment. It was one room, because I only had $800. It was one room. The couch made a bed. It was a little kitchen corner, a very little fridge. It was perfect, big, large window overlooking the city.
Natalie Richard:
She said, "Okay." I said, "Well, I'll take it." It's all furnished and everything. But I said, "I need it now." She was like, "Well, I need to take your reference." I said, "I'll give you a check right now, first and last month but I need it now, because I have a party tonight to go to." She loved me. She was like, "Really?" I said, "Yes, I need to change you see. All my stuff is in my car and I need to change," and I did need to go to the party, because I told everybody I was going to be there. She was looking at me like, "Whoa. Okay." She said, "Sure. Okay. No problem."
Erica Ehm:
Natalie, when you mentioned, when you first met with who was it? Oh, Dana Lee at Queen Street East, so that would have been probably four years earlier or something like that when you first met him, you said you didn't speak English.
Natalie Richard:
No, because he asked me, "What do you do?" I wanted to say I'm a host and I said, "I'm a blah, blah, blah."
Erica Ehm:
Yes, but when did you learn how to speak English well enough to be broadcasting live for four hours with no script? How did you do that?
Natalie Richard:
Well, if you look at my interviews when I first started, I used to make a lot of mistakes. You look at my first day when still, the very first day of this story is, somebody put the episode on YouTube, if you see it and it's like Steve Anthony introduces Natalie Richard. I was there for the first time and they said to me, "You don't have to work. Just come to the office, get acquainted. Sit at that desk and you'll be starting next week." But then I just got there the night before, I went to the party.
Natalie Richard:
The next morning I was there, and then Steve pretended to be sick because that's how they do. It has to be the environment and you cannot be prepared. I don't know. I think I spoke English a little bit, but I learned as I was doing it. I was making a lot of mistakes.
Erica Ehm:
Listen to me, this is really crazy. The idea that all of us were given four hours on live TV with no script is crazy enough, right? Because we, any of us could say anything that we wanted or really do anything that we wanted. But to put someone who doesn't have a strong control of a language to broadcast live for four hours is pretty crazy I think when you think about it, and the pressure on you. What was going on in your brain at that time? Were you instantly translating? How did you broadcast in English when you're French speaking?
Natalie Richard:
I don't know. I just did it. I learned English at school and I did English immersion when I was 14 years old in Peterborough. I had basic English. But I remember when I finished with MuchMusic, which was then maybe from '91 to '98, at the end, I didn't have a French accent anymore. Some people are like, "Oh, we miss your French accent. It was so nice when you had a French accent." Believe me now I have a French accent, I don't know if you can hear it. I had completely lost my ... I guess it's maybe a musical ear that makes you learn languages fast.
Natalie Richard:
I think it's because of music that I can learn so many languages faster. It's a musical thing to my ear. I would research. I would write. I would practice. I would make sure ... I had some funny moments when I said the wrong word and it could be interpreted in a different way, but I guess it was cute.
Erica Ehm:
You were brought in to, I guess, in a way represent French Canada.
Natalie Richard:
Absolutely.
Erica Ehm:
Which was a very astute thing for Moses and John and Nancy to have done. Did you ever feel pressure, that you were the one person representing the voice of French Canada?
Natalie Richard:
I've never thought about it that way. For me, I was working on MuchMusic and I didn't feel like I represented Quebec or anything like that, or I didn't see myself different than any other French Canadian. My grandfather was English, my mother's French. I have Native American background. For me, I'm a true Canadian. I never felt I'm from a distinct society. I never had it in me to feel this way, to feel different. I was very lucky when I think ... I don't know if you remember, but when I first arrived, there was a big Gemini Award Show and Mike Myers, it was during the year of Wayne's world and Mike Myers did a skit Wayne's World, he was hosting it.
Natalie Richard:
He did a skit of top five reason why Quebec shouldn't leave Canada. It was around the election. They wanted to be independent again. Quebec wanted to be independent again. He said, reason, number one [inaudible 00:42:10] Natalie Richard [inaudible 00:42:11]. He did that on CBC. The next day it was in the Toronto Star. Then I felt I was very lucky or it was just the momentum was good. I think people liked me. I never had any problems with the fact that I was French. When I would come back to Montreal I would say," Oh yeah, they don't like French people in Toronto."
Natalie Richard:
That's not true. Actually, I was more of a defender of English Canada than [foreign language 00:42:42] of Quebec, because for me it was natural. We had all the French videos that were sometimes controversial, but everybody loved Mitsu. In a few years after, I think three years after I was in, Moses asked me to do actually a French show and he said, "Find a name. It's going to be once a week." Then it turned out to be once a day. I remember being very excited going to his office, I said, "Moses, Moses, I have a name.
Natalie Richard:
I don't know if you're going to like it. It's a little bit ... It's called French Kiss, the meeting of two tongues." I thought, "Oh my God, this is way too intense for English Canada, but he loved it. At this point I was representing Quebec and the French language videos. We have half an hour dedicated to French culture, the difference and everything. It was great because when we created this show, I had no idea that it was going to become an educational program, that they would use in schools for young people to learn French.
Natalie Richard:
A lot of the schools out West would use French Kiss and the videos and the presentations, to help students to learn French and to be interested in the French culture, because it was part of the curriculum and they used my show. I was like, "Wow, this is so cool." At that point, I would say, "Now, I was an ambassador for my culture," but not at the beginning.
Erica Ehm:
I had no idea that that was used as a curriculum. Then you did Fromage with [inaudible 00:44:11].
Natalie Richard:
Oh, yeah. Oh my God. This is the memorable ... This is the most fun with Christopher. He would fly in every year from LA, and for those who don't remember, Christopher and I were a French couple who own a Fromage Cheese, a cheese store, and we would play every the worst videos. Then Christopher is so funny and I was not [inaudible 00:44:36], I was his lovely assistant Natalie. Another funny thing is like, my name is Natalie Richard, but no one ever called me ...
Natalie Richard:
As long as I was at MuchMusic in Toronto, nobody called me Natalie Richard. They always called me Natalie Richard. Then after the skit from Mike Meyers, they would call me Natalie Richard [inaudible 00:45:01] like the Mike Meyers thing.
Erica Ehm:
Which is the fox, Natalie the fox.
Natalie Richard:
Reynard, but Dennis was always saying Reynard Richard, Reynard. They were calling my name in French.
Erica Ehm:
Everybody loved you. [crosstalk 00:45:19] Everybody loved working with you. Do you feel like there were different expectations put on women who were on air than the guys?
Natalie Richard:
No, I never felt that. It's not very much of my personality. I was raised as like you with a very strong mother. I was never raised as boys and girls are different, so it's not in my mind to think that. I can see it sometimes, but it's almost like I don't feel part of it for some reason. There was a big expectation on the workload that we had to do. Because I remember when that we started to the French Kiss, Moses ... I think it was Moses Znaimer or wherever was my boss at the time said to me, "Okay, now you're going to be directing that show.
Erica Ehm:
French Kiss?
Natalie Richard:
French kiss. I became a director and I was like, "I'm a VJ. I'm not a director. There's a lot of things to do there." I remember going to the crew and saying, they were all upset because they all wanted to be the director. For them it was like an upgrade in their job. Then I remember thinking, "Okay, they didn't work want to work with me." Then we always one before every year, for all those years we'd go out after to the bar for a drink after work. It was very much like keeping the team together. I loved to hanging out with the crew and everything, but then nobody was talking to me anymore.
Natalie Richard:
I was like, "Okay, well, do you know what to do," and then they wouldn't do anything. I realized, "Okay, I'm a director now, so I need to be directing." It took me a while to learn that, but what an opportunity it was, but I was never again not told how to do it. It's like, this is how we learned this. All this environment made us learn as we could. There was never any direction or any. I learned one day, I realized they need to be told. They need me to act as a director, not as a friend that you go for a drink and now I'm not a VJ anymore, so I need to give them specifically what they need to do.
Natalie Richard:
I started doing that and it was all fine after that. Then I became a director. It was another string to my art, which later when this was all over, I was a producer for a CBC East Coast producer for a show called Street Sense for maybe three to five years. I was a correspondent, and as a producer director because of that experience. It's all good.
Erica Ehm:
Tell me about the behind the scenes of Much. You mentioned, going out for drinks with everybody. What was the vibe like for you when you worked at Much? Everybody wants to know this, what's the dirt or what did it feel like? Or what was the social dynamic between the on-air people, the crew, the bands that came in, the record company guys and gals who brought the artists, what was that like for you?
Natalie Richard:
Oh, for me, it was like a big family. Sometimes I compare this to the Mickey Mouse Club. You're just a child and they take you in the Mickey Mouse Club and you live in this world that's a fantasy in a way. We didn't really have a real life. I didn't have a real boyfriend for all these years. I didn't have a family life. I was in Toronto. I was away from [inaudible 00:48:50]. We were traveling. You know how it was, and for me, everybody in this environment was my friend. It was a big, big, big family. That's how it was.
Natalie Richard:
There was some discord in between people, but honestly I never wanted to get involved. I was always friends with everybody, doing my job, loving to go on the road. I loved every minute of it. I guess by the end, I started to be tired. I think it's a life that takes a lot of what you have inside. It squeezes you as any type of work or-
Erica Ehm:
Creative work.
Natalie Richard:
... creative work, but at some stage and it's a [foreign language 00:49:33]. You see, it's like a rolling fire.
Erica Ehm:
Like a marathon. It's like a marathon.
Natalie Richard:
Yeah. You need a lot of energy. I was never been sick. I never missed any. It was really, really exciting. I guess by the end, I was getting tired and then it was changing. The industry was changing also. It was becoming more corporate. It was not as it was. They were changing also for younger and different generations. It was the beginning of the end now that we look at it, when we started leaving all the original ones, but you but me later. But I still consider myself as the original, because of the MusiquePlus years.
Erica Ehm:
Why did you leave? What happened? What's the story?
Natalie Richard:
Well, my time was up. My contract was not renewed and it was a mutual agreement. I was done. I think I was really tired and I needed to move on to something else. It's very strange because I had done that all my life. Like let's say from 21 years to 35, between MusiquePlus and MuchMusic, I grew up in this environment literally and you too. You must have lots to say about that is like, most people grow up in their 20s, they date and they go out and they have a normal life. We never had that. We grew up under the lights.
Natalie Richard:
Everybody was watching us every day. When you go out, everybody recognizes you and they come up to you and say, "Oh, you look much better on TV," stuff like that, or sometimes-
Erica Ehm:
It's funny, talking to you is reaffirming to me because ... This is one of the reasons why I'm doing this podcast is because, I have such mixed feelings about my time back at Much. I loved it, don't get me wrong. But there were a lot of hard things about it that, it's not that I want to complain about it, but I want ... I like when I hear other on-air people reflect back with similar feelings that I had. It did suck a bit of life out of me back in the day. I was happy to go. In fact, when I left and I don't know if you remember this, because you and I were friends already at this point.
Natalie Richard:
Yes, yes.
Erica Ehm:
I tried as hard as I could to distance myself from MuchMusic. In fact, I resented when anybody would stop me on the street and say, "Hey, are you that girl from MuchMusic?" I wanted to growl at them. Of course I smiled and I said, "Yes, it's me obviously." But for me to do this podcast is only, because I have been able to emotionally feel like I'm now my own person.
Natalie Richard:
I totally agree with you, Erica, because it's the same with me. When I finished that it was finished. I wanted to turn the page and do something else and reinvent or find out who I really was and what am I going to do next? I remember, there was so many flowers in my apartment when I finished. Everybody sends you flowers because they love working with you. I thought I was dead. If it was nowadays, there was no phone, intelligent romance, I would have taken a picture of myself on the floor surrounded with all these flowers.
Natalie Richard:
It was really the death of something. The image in my head is really, it's the death of something. There is a period of mourning that needs to be done after that. I think for three months, I didn't much go out of my apartment. I was like, "Whoa." I was so tired. It was almost like a truck ran over me. It was just like, "Whoa," and then what next? You wonder, and then you call people and then they don't return your call, because you're not necessary to them anymore. It's a business. They were not your friends.
Natalie Richard:
Then you're so young and you go in, you think, "Oh, everybody here is my friend. Everybody loves me." What's coming up next, but then you're not there, so nobody cares anymore. That was a shock to me.
Erica Ehm:
I have to tell you something. When I spoke to Nat McGinney and also Catherine McClenehan, both of them said the same thing to me, that when they left, they lost a majority of their friends. That suddenly people weren't interested in them the same way and that it really hurt them.
Natalie Richard:
Well, yes. This is how you learn. Some people learn it younger, but for me, it was then, to make the difference between personal life and work life, which was not clear. I think our life was all mix and match, and I didn't have really a life except that life and for many years. I got swapped into this. Like I said, I didn't regret it, but it was difficult to turn ... When I needed to turn the page like you, I needed not to hear about it to be able to build myself again, without having this character, who is this person? Then it's interesting how I made peace with that is, when I realized, and this is what I told you at the beginning, I realized once you're famous, you're always famous.
Natalie Richard:
Then I realized whether I want it or not, I will always be that girl. It's part of me. It hurts people when I tell them, "I don't want to talk about it," because they always want to know, "Oh, how was it?" It's always the same questions. Who did you meet? I was interviewing David Bowie and then you're like, "Can you ask me something else about now? Can you ask me how I am? What am I doing now?" All they want to know is like, "I was a dam," and this is hard. Then eventually I realized and it's very selfish from them to want that, because then you're not there anymore, but you still have to embody that persona, that role.
Natalie Richard:
Then I realized that, "Okay, I'm going to have this role for the rest of my life." I realized when I say it, when I go, because I do hosting still now, at wine tastings and stuff like that, and when I tell people, because they're always like, [inaudible 00:55:50]. Now, it's been long enough and much older, so I'm thinking ... They're like, "No, I think I've known as girl. Did we go to school together?" They're looking for it. "No," I tell them. I said, "Yeah, if you think you've seen me before." They're like, "Yes. I knew it." It makes them so happy because I realize it's a part of their lives, as much as it was a part of mine. But it took me a long time to put the two together.
Erica Ehm:
I agree with that.
Natalie Richard:
[crosstalk 00:56:19] the two were whole but I think this is growing up, because you don't have a chance ... While everybody else is doing the normal things in life, dating and all that stuff, which was not, how hard is it to date a guy when you're like a celebrity on TV, all the guys are looking at you like, "Oh my God, it's Natalie Richard. Oh my God, it's Erica Ehm." They guys-
Erica Ehm:
I was home alone for most of the time that I was on MuchMusic because ... It's funny because when I left MuchMusic years later and I became a parent, a mom, suddenly all these women and their husbands would stop me on the street, "Oh my God. I used to have the biggest crush on you." I was like, "You did? You did? What?" Because no one asked me out. I never got asked out, right?
Natalie Richard:
No, never. Not that I really had any time, but no guys would [crosstalk 00:57:17].
Erica Ehm:
I had time because I didn't ... Like you; you were way more social than I was. That's your personality. You love to go to bars. You're very Quebecois, you're warm and you like to celebrate with people, et cetera. Not me, I would go home.
Natalie Richard:
I loved going out. I was asking you all the time, "Erica, come with us. We're doing this. It's going to be so much fun." You're like, "No, no, please don't force me. I don't want to go." I'm like, "Really?"
Erica Ehm:
I know, I'm such an-
Natalie Richard:
It was like [crosstalk 00:57:50].
Erica Ehm:
I'm really quite an introvert and you're completely an extrovert. That's why I think we get along really well, because we respected each other's differences. You left MuchMusic and you have been grappling with who you were and who you will become. You worked at Street Sense in CBC, and you started hosting a cooking show or a show about food. Tell me about it. You suddenly made this, not suddenly. That's the wrong word. You started to evolve the new Natalie, drawing on this love of food that you've had, the travel that your family went on when you were younger.
Erica Ehm:
You started to tap into, not the real Natalie, but a different part of Natalie.
Natalie Richard:
Absolutely. I was Epicurean. As you know, always been and I had an agent at this point and I got this job to work with ... Remember that great Canadian food show on the CBC. It was on for five years. There was a French version of that. I went on for one year. They had the license to do a French version. The first year we toured all of us together across Canada. Carlo Rota was the host. We did two shows together in Quebec. But the concept was to shoot simultaneously. We would spend one day shooting the English version and then the French version. We would always shoot together.
Erica Ehm:
Did you do both, the English and the French?
Natalie Richard:
No. Carlo was doing the English, and then when he was finished with his shot, I would go in the shot and do the French. We did that same thing so we all toured together. That's when I basically went from music to gastronomy, food. Then I after that, I was hired to be a co-host on the first food cooking shows on the, was it the Food Network it's called. Here it's called Canal Vie. Was the first cooking show in 2000. Imagine cooking shows were not popular at this time. Again, I'm doing something new and that was really fun.
Natalie Richard:
I was with a chef and we were cooking, and I was his assistant, a bit like with Christopher in Fromage, but this was serious cooking. It was fun. We did that for a year. They were changing hosts every year. I did that, and after that I did a sex show.
Erica Ehm:
What?
Natalie Richard:
I did a show about sexuality, not a sex show, let's put it right. One woman was supposed to ... Anyways, I replaced somebody in the show and they called me and they said, "Oh, we need the ... I just gave birth to Dahlia my daughter. I had lots of ..." It was crazy. I kept saying, "That's why they came to get me," but no, no, really, I was doing the press review on this. It was a sexuality quality show at 11. Only in Quebec you would find that, 11:00 PM on Friday night for couples and talking about what's going on. There was a comedian in the show and it was fun. It was a fun show. I did that.
Natalie Richard:
Then I moved to Hong Kong for two years, but then I started writing. I started going into travel writing when I lived in Hong Kong with my daughter, with my husband at the time. In Hong Kong it was really interesting, but then I had time to write.
Erica Ehm:
You went to Dubai, didn't you?
Natalie Richard:
Yeah, I lived in Dubai for one year. But at this point I was a yoga, a certified yoga teacher. I was a herbalist and a [inaudible 01:01:33] because when it started getting children-
Erica Ehm:
Yeah, I think it's interesting for ... I'm hoping that as people are listening to this, they're taking note of all the things that you have taught yourself. You went from this love of cooking and then you studied yoga.
Natalie Richard:
Yes.
Erica Ehm:
Then you studied travel and you started to become a travel writer.
Natalie Richard:
Yes, because I always adapted my life, my work to my life, I guess. Because then when I started traveling, I thought, "Okay, now I can't work." I couldn't work in Hong Kong and I had a young child, so I said, "I can write." It was difficult for me to write at the beginning because usually I wouldn't write. I would just go on-air and say what I had in my mind. It was easy. I did my research. I didn't have to write anything but writing you know because you've written a few books, and you've done theater and everything
Natalie Richard:
Every word counts. You have to think about every word and how they go together and the beginning, the middle and the end and where it goes. It was interesting. It was like, "Wow, I can." I always wanted to write and now have time, write other things than songs. I was able to write for newspapers and send stories. I became a freelancer, I guess already at this point. Because I was traveling, I had the occasion of traveling. I was able to sell stories. In Dubai, I was allowed to work in Dubai. I worked for The Gulf News.
Natalie Richard:
I was writing a travel column and I was training again. This is the multi job thing. I was a personal trainer. I was a yoga teacher, a trainee, one-on-one with women mostly. It was really a very rewarding experience in a studio, private studio and women would come and they had a problem with their weight and they couldn't lose weight. I was saying, "How come?" And show me what they ... "I have a dietician." I realized, all the food they were eating were not appropriate to their culture or their tastes, because it was all bland and it was all empty.
Natalie Richard:
It was like a chocolate muffin, there's so many calories, but it's not nourishing. Then I started writing recipes for them. They would hire me to give them recipes and they would lose weight, because they were loving their food. I was like, "Stop doing a diet. Eat what you like and you'll be fine. Drink lots of wine."
Erica Ehm:
You know what's interesting is that, when you went there, you weren't Natalie Richard.
Natalie Richard:
Oh, yeah. That's true.
Erica Ehm:
You could have a regular job of just being a trainer. When I say just, it's not that it's a small job, but it's the kind of job that you couldn't have done before in Canada.
Natalie Richard:
It's probably the kind of job Erica that nobody would have hired me for here. Now, you just made me think of that. The fact that I was willing and I was able to expatriate myself, we did that for three years, two years in Hong Kong and one year in Dubai. I guess for me, I really wanted to go there because I needed to be able to be who I am without the stigma of who I was as a personality. Imagine you're a dentist, and then you decided you want to be a plumber or no. Imagine you're a plumber ... Let's go the other way around and then you want to be a dentist, and then you go to school.
Natalie Richard:
And you're famous plumber, nobody wants you to touch their mouth because it's like, "This is the plumber. I don't know if he's looking for a dentist," and it works like that. It maybe not a good example, but it works like that in people's mind. They put people in a box, but in reality we're creators of our own life and especially us in our area. We're artists in a way, because all you created at YMC, it's all creativity. We work in the field of creativity, which is ever changing.
Natalie Richard:
I think that's why ... I realized later because they hired me for different TV show, it never worked out. A lot of people ask me, "Why didn't you continue doing a career on TV?" It didn't work because I realized I don't like TV that much. I like Much Music. I like MusiquePlus because it was live, because we were creating. Every time you would go on there, we didn't know what we were going to say. It was live. It was right now. It was not, "Okay, learn this and say it 23 times and repeat it to me with this emotion, with that emotion."
Natalie Richard:
I realized I didn't like that. I was not an actress and when they asked me, sometimes I did jobs where they asked me 10 times to repeat the same thing. I was just exhausted and I didn't want to do it. I really didn't want to do it. It's not the TV and being famous that I liked. It was this environment, this momentum in life where we were at that time. Then I think I disliked the fact that I had a bullet to my feet that I was going to be stuck there in time for the rest of my life. It's like, "No, look what I'm doing now. It's completely different." But then I realized, it's okay. They can go together. We're all a whole.
Erica Ehm:
You were into gastronomy and you studied herbs, et cetera. Then you discovered working in wine. I was going to say you didn't discover wine because from what I know about you, you've always enjoyed your wine.
Natalie Richard:
Oh yes.
Erica Ehm:
That's always been a hobby of yours. Then apparently you went to study wine and to take a course, and you got 100% in blind tasting.
Natalie Richard:
Yeah. That comes with experience Erica. The more you taste the more you know what's in your-
Erica Ehm:
Could you explain to me what a blind tasting test is?
Natalie Richard:
Okay. Well, after being in gastronomy, I did these two TV shows and then I did the travel section. I came back to Montreal and I was doing the first Châtelaine. We have Châtelaine in Quebec In French and-
Erica Ehm:
Travel magazine, yeah.
Natalie Richard:
Yeah, exactly. When the first, the blog started, social media started, this is around 2000, no, 2010, something like that. Then social media, Twitter, and all that stuff started to come up, and all the magazines were going online. I did the [foreign language 01:08:11] blog for Châtelaine. I was writing stories about that. I was a food blogger at that point. Being a food blogger, I was always in the more and more starting to meet wine makers and incorporate wine with food. I always loved my wine as you know, but I realized I didn't have the language of wine.
Natalie Richard:
That really upset me because I like to have the right words on the right things. I went to school. I asked my boyfriend at the time, my daughter was still young. I said, "I have to go to school 40 hours. This is the whole fall. I'm going to have to go to school two nights a week until 11:00 PM. Is that okay?" It was okay. I went and it was just tasting one-on-one the first ... It was a real class at [inaudible 01:08:56], a real wine class, but the numero uno, first one. And then at the end we had to, there was a glass of white wine and a glass of red wine and we have, it's a blind tasting so we don't know what's inside the glass.
Natalie Richard:
We have some points and if we're able to describe what it tastes like, the description, also we have more points if we're able to guess what kind of grape is inside, what kind of country or a region it's from and what year you think it's from.
Erica Ehm:
Are you literally blindfolded?
Natalie Richard:
No. What's blinded is the wine.
Erica Ehm:
Okay. You know the wine that it's red and you know that it's white-
Natalie Richard:
That's it.
Erica Ehm:
That's it.
Natalie Richard:
You can look at it and but in my mouth, I could figure out with the experience of like being a wine lover, it was easy. It was the first class number 101. My teacher, he was giving the results. He was meeting all the students after we finished that. He said to me, he said, "Hey, young recruit," because I was one of the oldest in the class going back to school. He said, "You really have to work in wine." I was like, "Really? What am I going to do, work at LCB [inaudible 01:10:13]?" I couldn't understand what I was going to do in wine. I was like, "Really?" I didn't understand really.
Natalie Richard:
For me, it was not clear, but he is really the one who gave me confidence that I have a role in the world of wine. Oh my God, it's been such a great journey. I've been studying wine for eight ... Is it eight or nine years already? I've written a book called [foreign language 01:10:42], 50 itineraries in the world, dream itineraries on the wine routes of the world. I just finished a diploma. This is the level before master. There's only 10 people who have this diploma in Quebec. I went to study in New York.
Natalie Richard:
I sold my house again, grabbed my bag and I was staying Erica in Brooklyn, in this beautiful brownstone home with six other students. Were all like young students, 20 years old, they all like [foreign language 01:11:22]-
Erica Ehm:
Stages, different stages.
Natalie Richard:
Not stages, but they're all [foreign language 01:11:30], the United Nations. They're all like starting their career and there I am, I have my room. I have a bathroom that we share and I have like one part of the refrigerator where I can put my stuff and one part of the [inaudible 01:11:46]. I've never lived with anybody before. I'm sitting in my room one day on my bed and I'm like, "I'm in Brooklyn alone and I'm in this room." The bed is from Ikea. It's really okay. It's $1,200 to stay there for a month.
Natalie Richard:
I was sitting there alone and I'm thinking, "What am I doing?" I left everything behind. My daughter is staying with, she's finished school. I go back and forth, but still I'm doing this. I'm thinking, "If I don't do this now, I'll never do it." I really need to get a diploma because I want to teach. It felt like I had plateau in terms of what I know in wine. I want to be able to seriously not taking myself seriously, but have the knowledge and the thing is with the world of wine, the more you learn, the more everything else, but the more you learn, the more you realize you know no nothing.
Natalie Richard:
It's so vast. It's geology. It's [foreign language 01:12:46]. It's history. It's the type of grapes. It's the chemistry that happens when you are making the wine. There's so much to learn. It really challenged my intelligence. I'm really on my [inaudible 01:13:02] right now in the world of wine, I just love it. I communicate the same way as I did on MuchMusic, except now I do it with wine instead of music.
Erica Ehm:
Really?
Natalie Richard:
The bands are the winemakers and the music house are the vineyards. The players are the ones who taste the wine and I teach people. There's a lot of misunderstanding and misleading ideas about wine, and I teach people to feel good about tasting wine, and what wine is. Wine is a product of agriculture. It's a product of the earth. How do you taste? It's not drinking. It's tasting. It's different, and the pairing with food, how it can elevate a meal. It's really ... I feel really blessed to have found this ... Well I mean this direction found me too, again. It's just [crosstalk 01:13:52].
Erica Ehm:
Sort of. It did, but you do the work. You recognize your passion and then you do the work. My God, you sold your house in order to do this. I have so much respect for you, Natalie. Tell me, you've had such a rollercoaster life so far of successes and failures. What has been your proudest moment in your life so far?
Natalie Richard:
Well, first of all, I have to tell you, I don't see failure as ... For me, success and failure is close. I don't feel like I had any failure per se. There's things that didn't work or they change into something else, because everything is in movement. I don't [inaudible 01:14:44]. If we look at a divorce, maybe we can say it's a failure, but sometimes when the marriage is not working, it's best to move on, have the courage to face it's difficult, and then something better comes up.
Erica Ehm:
Also look at your daughter, there is no failure in that coming together of you and your ex-husband because you made Dalia, who is an amazing kid.
Natalie Richard:
Yeah, exactly. But you always wish for it to be forever. That was a difficult thing for me. I thought it was a failure at one point. I now realize it's not because I have my daughter, and because the experience was good in so many ways. But other than that, professionally, I always feel like everything is a stepping stone and I never felt like I failed. Even if I was maybe mistaken in the directions, but they all led me where I am now. This is something you can only see when you look back. In the moment, you don't know.
Natalie Richard:
You feel lost. You go, "Oh my God, why am I doing this? I wasted so much time." Then finally, if you listen to your heart and you listen to your way, everything leads you. I find our path is very similar that way. Everything leads us to where we need to be. Everything that was behind was a stepping stone to get there. It's one piece more in the puzzle that creates experience. If there's something that's good about aging is experience. At least we have that.
Erica Ehm:
The one thing.
Natalie Richard:
The one thing that's really worth and that's a privilege to age in life. But at least the good thing is, we get to learn more things, but I didn't answer your question, did I?
Erica Ehm:
I'm going to remind you, it's the proudest moment. I want to know them because like ... I'm going to go back and say, you have done so many interesting things, met interesting people, put yourself in challenging situations. What is the proudest thing or moment or highlight in your life?
Natalie Richard:
I think on a personal level, the thing that I'm most proud of and I think you will agree with me on your end is my daughter. I think when you're a parent, I'm so proud of this, having done that, that I've created life. I had my daughter, I was 37, 38 so at the time it was pretty late. It was like maybe I would have never had her. I am very happy about that. Professionally, I'm really proud of this book, this book that I done. I traveled five continents, 23 countries.
Erica Ehm:
You just held up a book. Now this is an audio recording. I want to make sure that people understand, you just held up a book. Say the name again, because this book it sold out within two months and it's being described as one of the essential books if you like wine.
Natalie Richard:
Right. What's happening with wine now before the pandemic, the world pandemic is like, vineyards were starting to open to people, having cellar doors and inviting people to see how wine is made, tasting on the property. This is something that's been popping up. All these places have been popping up mostly in the new world, but even in the old countries in Europe and discovering it. I think it's the best way to know wine is to go on the territory, to go on the [foreign language 01:18:22] and visit the winemakers and see how it's made, and realize that it doesn't come up in the bottle. You don't open a tap and there's wine and put the next label on it.
Natalie Richard:
Some wine maybe, but it's a product, it's an art. There's just so much behind it. I had this idea of doing this book in a collection called Dream Itinerary. [inaudible 01:18:43] is the top French publisher. It's like Lonely Planet's let's say in French. It's published in France and Switzerland, only French countries. This is called Wine Routes in the World, 50 dream itinerary. I went on five continents in 23 countries to visit these roads. It was part of my study as well. I figured, "Okay, I'm studying in my diploma. I'm learning things at school. I'm learning things in books. I have to go."
Natalie Richard:
One great teacher once told me, "If you want to understand wine, you have to go on the [foreign language 01:19:23] and see how it's made there. Then you'll know. Then you'll have the knowledge." It was also part of like, "Okay, I'm going to go, and then I have a book to write," and thank God I wrote it last year, because this year, all of this would not have been possible. Then it was a very crazy work is that I left for an entire year. My hub was Istanbul and I traveled to all these countries and people were inviting me.
Natalie Richard:
Sometimes I have to go on my own. I remember being in Italy, in the north of Italy in Piedmont and this woman was like, "This is your car?" I'm like, "Yes." "You're driving yourself to all these countries?" It's easy in Europe because it's close. We're used to drive lots of kilometers here in Montreal, Toronto, many times it's only six hours. Montreal, New York is only six hours. For me driving six hours from one country to another one is like, "Okay, no problem." Then when you visit vineyards, you need a car.
Natalie Richard:
There's no bus stop in front of the vineyard. It's in the country and sometimes you don't know where it is. I went to Georgia. I went to South Africa.
Erica Ehm:
Georgia near Russia?
Natalie Richard:
Yeah, yeah. Not Georgia USA. I went to LA. Not LA but California, Napa. Anyways to 23 countries, and I was absolutely by myself, and I'm so happy I did that. I became a different person at the end of this. I started looking at life differently. It was almost like a pilgrimage of my life. At 50, what do you do now? Looking at the world, with a purpose, because I have to write this book, and as you know writing a book is a lot of work. It takes a lot of discipline. I'm so happy. It was a big. I invested $10,000. I paid all of this by myself and I was like, "Oh my God, okay.
Natalie Richard:
If it doesn't sell, I lose all this money, but then I'll have the knowledge." But then it's sold out in three months. After Christmas last year, it was all sold out. We had 6,000 copies and now they've printed more, and I am so happy of this project really.
Erica Ehm:
Natalie, I am so proud of you. I'm so proud that you're my friend. I really think that your story is a great example, for people to understand that those of us who were chosen to be on MuchMusic, were chosen because there is something on fire inside us, and this deep desire to communicate and to create and to work hard, and to be true to what it is that we love in our lives. I think that you really embody that. Thank you so much for your time today and for sharing all these great stories.
Erica Ehm:
As for you, my awesome listener, if you enjoyed today's conversation and how can you not, please remember to rate the show, hopefully with five stars. Please review it and absolutely subscribe to the show, so you will never miss another episode of Reinvention of the VJ, because there are so many more super cool interviews to be posted. Many interesting people worked at MuchMusic, and I can't wait to hear all of their stories. If you would like to call me and leave a little voice message and maybe ask a question or share an anecdote or some feedback about your memories of MuchMusic, the number to call is (833) 972-7272 and we'll play your comment like the comment that started off today's show.
Erica Ehm:
We'll play it on a future episode. That number again is (833) 972-7272. If you're not the phone message kind of person, that's okay. I'm all over social media. You can share feedback with me on Facebook or LinkedIn or Twitter or Instagram. Just look for Erica or actually look for Erica Ehm and you'll find me there. Again, thank you Natalie Richard for being my guests today. I'll see you next week with another episode of Reinvention of the VJ. Here's to living a life filled with music, meaning and many reinventions.
Speaker 4:
Thanks for listening. Follow Eric Ehm's Reinvention of the VJ podcast. Subscribe and follow more episodes. Click to Reinventionofthevj.com
Speaker 4:
Podcast produced in collaboration with Steve Anthony Productions. Editing and coordination of The [inaudible 01:24:05] Communications, Inc. Copyright 2020.