Nabilla Benattia

Nabilla was first hired by a modelling agency when she was 14 years old. Soon after, she was elected Miss Geneva International Motor Show 2011 while working on the Peugeot stand. At age 17, Benattia lied about her age to take part in the TF1's reality TV show L'Amour est aveugle (the French version of "love is blind"), where participants meet in total darkness.

Following her first appearance on TV, Benattia underwent breast enlargement surgery, which she claims was to further her career, enabling her to appear in publications such as Maxim and Playboy .

During 2012, she appeared in the fourth series of les Anges de la télé-réalité, shot in Hawaii. The programme, which airs on NRJ 12, follows a group of reality TV personalities for ten weeks. On the show she became romantically involved with Sofiane Tadjine-Lambert, who was in Star Academy 4. He wrote a song for her, "Dingue de toi (Nabi… Nabilla)", which reached number 25 in the French music charts.

In early 2013, she finished filming on the fifth series in Florida. For her participation in this series, Benattia purportedly earned €25,000. In the fourth episode, after an argument with a fellow female castmember who said she had not bought shampoo, Benattia was shown in a confessional cutaway, where she mimed talking into a telephone and said the words which led to the establishment of her celebrity status:

"Euh, allô! non, mais allô, quoi. T'es une fille et t'as pas de shampooing ? Allô. Allô ! Je sais pas, moi, vous me recevez ? T'es une fille, t'as pas de shampooing ? C'est comme si je dis : t'es une fille, t'as pas de cheveux !" ("Er, hello! I mean, like, hello? You're a girl, you got no shampoo. Hello. Hello! I dunno, can you hear me? You're a girl, you got no shampoo? It's like if I said, 'you're a girl, you got no hair'.")

Nabilla's uttering caused a media buzz in France and generated many parodies, on the internet and in various media. La Grosse Équipe, the production company behind les Anges, registered four trademarks in mid-March with l'Institut national de la propriété industrielle, the French intellectual property registry. These were "Allô, quoi", "Allô, t'es une fille, t'as pas de shampooing, c'est comme si je dis, t'es une fille, t'as pas de cheveux", "Allô, non mais allô quoi", and "Allô, Nabilla la vraie vie de la famille Benattia". The last of these resulted in rumours discussed on Twitter that a new reality show was in the offing with her as the star. In a TV interview on the talkshow Grand journal, watched by 1.8 million viewers, Benattia confirmed that there will be a reality TV show following her day-to-day. La Grosse Équipe has also registered "Nabilla cherche l'amour" as a title for a TV show.

A fifth trademark "Nabilla allô t'es une fille t'as pas de shampooing c' est comme si t'es une fille t'as pas de cheveux" was registered by Benattia herself. The trademarks are registered across ten categories covering a wide range of products including scientific instruments, jewellery and linen but not shampoo.

In April 2013, a French Wikipedia article about her was deleted after a debate resulted in the decision that she lacked encyclopedic interest, being merely the object of a "buzz" instead of proper "information"; this decision on the French-language Wikipedia generated some media attention The page was redirected to that of Les Anges de la téléréalité.; in January 2014, it was ultimately recreated and kept after another debate, which concluded that her notability had proved sufficiently durable.

On 12 November 2013, her own TV Reality show started on NRJ 12. Called Allô Nabilla, ma famille en Californie (in reference to her famous line "Non mais allô quoi"), the show follows her and her family in Los Angeles. The show got mixed reviews. While the premiere's ratings were disappointing, the show performed ultimately well, and was renewed for three other seasons. In September 2014, she became a columnist for Touche pas à mon poste !, France's most popular talk show.

She is often referred as the "French Kim Kardashian" by TMZ.

In April 2016, she released an autobiographical book, Trop vite (Too fast).

In June 2018, conceptual artist Andy Picci unveiled a new body of work dedicated to Benattia. The exhibition at Joseph Saint Martin gallery consisted of a series of paintings by classic masters – including the Mona Lisa – on to which Picci has photoshopped Benattia's features.