Olly Murs in concert, in Paris on sept 30. Will Alizée be beside him.

[Jenny_HRO87]

oh my God I just read what you did Scruffy and even if you had the best intentions I'm sure there was nothing worse you could have done in my opinion and I totally agree with wildfire and lapinschous here

I have no idea how you normally think about money or if it's probably different in the US in general but I highly doubt that.

If I would have been in Alizée's position this gesture would have crept me out for sure and I don't really think you did a nice thing.

Taking money from someone else is always something not everyone likes to do. I mean I even complain when my mum goes shopping with me and wants to give me money for the clothes but in the end I take it because she's my mum after all even if I'm always like "no don't do that...." But if my friend would over me such a thing I would say no. I would be a person who would lend my best friend money but I also know this friend wouldn't take it.

It's totally different for example if someone would give his niece or nephew a bit of money for a birthday. Or Christmas. Or one day I might give some money to my adorable little cousins when they are old enough for that. But that's family. And that's about something between 20,00 € and 50,00 €. That's something that would happen once or twice a year.

Or if you would have Alizée a nice presents, even one that would cost a hundred euros... that also might be ok. It would be too much but it wouldn't be money.

If you give her something like this I highly doubt she was be happy about it. Maybe one day you'll get it back. Or maybe she'll give it away for charity. But keeping that kind of money, keeping someone she didn't earn on her own, keeping something you got from a total stranger... that is wrong in so many ways. And that also cheap. Being a loyal fan and sending her a little present or a lovely thank you letter is nice. Even writing a letter about AAm and all the fans here is nice too and she'd like it. but money??? No.

And also - the money for Annily? I agree with what was already written above - it looks like that you'd think that she can't care about her daughter. That she can't send her to a proper school and can't buy her what ever she likes. And if I would be in Alizée's position I would feel insulted. It's a nice thought but it's totally wrong.

If I would be her I would be totally crept out and would send the money back. or give it away. but I would never ever take it. Maybe it was something to do with pride and that I want to make my own way in life and if I can't afford something I have to make cuts and save money for later. But I would want to do it all on my own. It's not a gift Scruffy. It looks more like an alms.

I'm sorry but I had to write this down...

[Un-rêve]

Haha.. I remember giving a girl at primary school ( I don't know what first school is called in the USA ) 1 pound because I really liked her. It was at the end of year just before breaking up for holidays and well she knew I really liked her all along but the only thing I remember about that encounter was her smile afterwards and her older brother inviting me to her birthday party that she was gonna have during the holidays.

Sasha was her name and she could run the 100 meters faster than me and all the other boys and girls in our class.. damn she was an angel. Well unfortuantly for me I never went to her birthday party or ever saw her again for that matter due to going abroad for my summer holidays.

What really gutted me afterwards though was a friend of mine told me he had hooked up with her.. but looking back now I believe he was just full of it because I feel she had no interest in him anyway.. but then again who knows?

Anyway at the end of the day I still think about her and wonder how she's doing.. I always thought she would be a female olympic medalist in the 100 meters.

Nonetheless I agree with lappy, wildfire and Jenny on this one.

[Fall]

Originally Posted by Un-rêve

Haha.. I remember giving a girl at primary school ( I don't know what first school is called in the USA )

Elementary my dear Watson Elementary school. Heh, in elementary school the girl I liked ran for class president or something like that. I voted for her, that's it

But on topic here, money may not have been the ideal gift but I don't think there was any harm done, really.

[lefty12357]

I'm sorry, but I have to agree with Lappy, Wildfire, Jenny and Un-rêve. In my opinion, giving money like that to Alizée was inappropriate.

[wildfire]

Originally Posted by lapinschous

Because as you may know , the french education system is entirely free, kinda like the healthcare system, from nursing schools to universities. There are no fees at all.

Originally Posted by lapinschous

Exactly my thoughts...

Especially in France where money is some kind of taboo in social interactions.

The more I hear about this "France" place, the more I like it.... Tell me is the food any good? How are the women?

Originally Posted by lapinschous

Exactly my thoughts...

As a fellow christian, helping those in need is always the best way of contributing to the well-being of society.

In America, Guns, money and greed are the best way of contributing to the well-being of society!

[Karin]

well... I dont read everything, but from the last posts I little understand whats going here... and I must agree with Jenny and others...

Scruffy, however you wanted to help it wasnt good idea. Jenny wrote it 100%. I know, and I see it sometimes that you and many other here do, like Alizée is a small baby who doesnt know what she do and what she shall do. Yea, sometimes yea... but when it go about her family, I think she is doing the best.

She try to do everything for her family, on the top with Annily. I think that's the reason why she accepted to be in DALS4 - on one side there is the chance to be again for little time in limelight and get new fans, on second side she does it for Annily and she herself said it (and we cant forget, the stars dont dance there just for fun but for money too).

Like was said here, its ok to give little money to some family members on Birthday, X-mas or other event by which its ok, but otherside no... Maybe she took the money, but we dont know what she was thinking in her mind, and what she did with them... like Jenny, I think she gave them to charity. Cause I think, her personality wouldn't let her to use the money for herself or better said for Annily.

For reminding... you Scruffy, Orion from AF or one french guy who has the ability to get every promo thing of Alizée, and others... you all wanted to send me many things... and however it was hard to say no, Its my personality - I try to get thing on my own, without others help

Or, there is my near person who I would like sometimes help him, cause I know he has not such option to have much money and get everything what he want. But again, however he would like, his personality dont let him to take money or little expensive things...

[Scruffydog777]

This is a copy of part of a letter I had hoped to deliver to Alizee early in the year, but things didn't pan out.
"The main purpose of this letter though is we wanted to thank you in some way for doing what you did for us. It was very generous of you to take the time out of your busy schedule to sign our cds. The way we wanted to thank you was to send you a check. We did not think you would take a check for yourself, so we wanted to send one for a worthy cause. Now We know the education system in France is different from ours, but in our country, it's often very expensive for tuition and expenses to send someone to college. A lot of times in this country, when one family wants to give another family a gift, if that family has a young member either going to college or who will be attending college in the future, they will give money towards their college education.

So it is in that regard that we the AlizeeAmerica family would like to make a small donation towards the costs of sending Annily to college or any other school she might choose to attend (dancing school?). We wanted to make it in the amount of 1,000 euros, but because it is a U.S. check, we have to make the amount out in dollars, so we are doing it for 1,400 U.S. dollars which after bank fees, should leave you with at least 1,000 euros.".

Once I went to Ajaccio, I decided to make the letter much shorter and to the point.

"As a way of thanking you for what you did for us in march by signing the 80 cds of your new Album 5 for the members of AlizéeAmerica, we'd like you to accept this gift to be used maybe towards Annily's education or for some other worthy cause of your choosing.".

One thing I considered was what happened back in 2010. I mentioned it earlier in here but those who still might not be familiar with what happened was after that autograph session where she signed 60 cds for us, we wanted to find a way to thank her. We discussed it in the forum. During that time Alizee posted that there was a boy in Ajaccio who was sick and she was going to hand paint a kind of ceramic figurine maybe is the best word for it and to auction it off with the money to go towards a charity that was set up for this boy.

Well Brian and me came up with the idea of not bidding on the toy, but matching the high bid with a donation of equal amount. That way it would draw in twice as much money for him. Well our donation grew to a much larger sum than what was ultimately drawn in by the auction. When the time came to send in the money we were able to get in touch with Alizee asking if we could send her the money and she said she was okay with that.

Well then we tried to contact her again to see where we should send the donation. At that time, we became aware of some controversy that was going on with this. Apparently some woman, a freind of the family, had set up this charity on her own with out consulting with the family and the father wasn't happy with it. I believe this woman asked Alizee to be a spokesperson for it.

A lot of this is what I get from reading between the lines and I think no one here can be exactly sure of what happened exactly, either initially or what I think happened afterwards.

The father owned a restaurant in Ajaccio. Apparently controversy arose on forums over there about whether the family was in need of some type of charity and the father was none to happy about it because it's not something he wanted to begin with. At the same time Alizee was removed as the spokesperson. I "believe" this was because the woman who started this fund, asked her to be the spokesperson and probably expected her to go to several fund raising events in Ajaccio and that was something she never agreed to.

So like I said, Alizee didn't reply to us because the whole thing turned into a can a worms and I think she wanted to wash her hands of the whole affair.

But Alizee knew of what we were trying to do.

The boy had to go to Marseille for treatments. He'b be there for several days at a time. The money raised was so the family could pay for an apartment for them to stay near by when he was getting his treatments.

The boy was in remission for a while, but later died.

So with this latest autograph session, once again I wanted to thank her for what she did for us. This autograph session came up on short notice so unlike before when we had time to discuss it in the forum, there was no time. I made a decision myself on how to handle it.

Thinking she would well remember what we did before and saying the gift this time could be used either for Annily or for something else, and also keeping in mind what the card said "As long as you keep being nice to us, we will find ways to be nice to you, I thought she'd appreciate the gesture even if normally she might be upset with a gift "just" for Annily.

But it looks like my ideas are totally out of touch with what the rest of the members here think, so I think it's best if I stop filling any type of roll as a "representative" of this forum. I had mentioned before after this last autograph session, because of my age, I felt uncomfortable not only as a fan, but more so as a representative. The same thing was true in Ajaccio.

AS much as I would of liked to, I didn't ask to shake her hand because of the way I feel about it at the autograph session in Paris or Ajaccio.

I felt uncomfortable too asking her to say hello to this forum so that will be the last time I do that. I'm sure there will be others attending the next session if there is one and it would be easy enough for them to do it if they should so choose to do it.

So if I go to such events in the future and that's a big if, I will do so only as a fan, maybe just asking her to sign a very few cds for a few close freinds.

If somebody else would want to take on this role, I will help them out with advice. The first thing I'd say is nobody would probably do what I did, paying for 80 cds up front, then have them shipped by Sony in a flimsy box with no insurance. So what I recommend they do is just get cds for active members which would probably be about 20, which they could relatively easily carry home. Of course they'd have to receive payment first.

I've kept the Sony contact's e-mail address in strictest confidence as I feel I should, but I will pass that info on to 2 or 3 members I can trust not to reveal it in public, in case they need this at another autograph session.

I put a lot of thought into what I do concerning her. Sometimes I go off on her in a way that would make the devil blush, but then there are times like my trip to Italy a few years ago after UEDS was released. I stopped in Rome first. I went to the Vatican. I stopped in St Peters where I said prayers for deceased family, world peace, our troops around the world. I thought about praying for Alizee, but I thought with all the wars and suffering going on around the world, that it wasn't a fair thing to pray for, so I said none for her.

Then I went to 2 places she performed in the past, Pistoia and Taormina. I went there for 2 reasons, because she performed there and because they are beautiful, beautiful towns. When I went to them, as in Rome, whenever I come across a church (Catholic which I am), I stop in to say prayers. In these 2 towns, because I was there partly due to Alizee, I decided to pray for her. I didn't think it was right to pray for her success, so what I prayed for was her happiness, no matter what happened with the album.

So on this past trip to Paris where I filmed her singing with Olly, the following day, I mentioned briefly in the forum I stopped in the Basilica of St Denis. Again I said my usual prayers. I was there because of Alizee so I decided to say a few prayers for her. I thought it would be greedy for me to pray that she'd win the DALS competition, so what I chose to pray for was that she'd dance to the best of her ability. I knew if she did that, she'd win hands down (Don't tell the man up stairs that!).

But with this letter to Alizee at her birthday autograph session, because of what happened, I had to make a decision on short notice and because what I did seems to be so out of tune with what members of this forum think, I think it's best I step down as a representative of this forum.

This isn't a decision I made hastily. I more or less made it last week. It's been a real busy week at work, which hasn't allowed me to post it, but has given me a lot of time to consider it.

Like I said, I don't feel comfortable being near her, mainly because of what I think other people percieve and I think she doesn't feel comfortable about an "older" fan.

I still plan on being active as ever. I may go to another autograph session, "if" one happens, but I think I might just stand in the background and take some pictures and videos, rather than go up for an autograph, and as far as next years Les Enfoires. Me and 3 other members had discussed going there together and I plan to do everything possible to make that happen.

[Rev]

The gift is an interesting situation. It was given with the best of intentions, but cultural factors brought into question how it might be received.

I think Alizée is smart enough, and willing to look on the best side of situations enough, to understand that it was given with an open heart. Yours is not the first gift she has received, and she usually accepts the gift and then decides what to do with it. If she really wants to understand what is going on, all she has to do is come to this forum and read the articles, or ask someone else to. Then, with the complete story, she can choose how to act.

I would not be worried about offending her. She has been doing this for too long. She would be impressed with both the amount and the source, and then, if she felt she could not cash it or pass it along, she would at least remember where it was from and that it was well-intentioned.

[C-4]

Well put Rev! I'm absolutely positive that Scruffy did what he did out of purely the best of intentions and nothing more.
Stephen

[Ray4AJ]

Very reasonable take on the situation, Rev. It's what I'd been thinking but couldn't put into words.