For sisters Loreen Talhaoui and Markiz Tainton, nothing has been impossible. Raised by an “unconscious feminist” with a fucking embrace like no other, they have always felt that they have been free to go their own way, but they have still always found their way back to the family.
Sisters Loreen Talhaoui, 37, and Markiz Tainton, 35, are similar in appearance and although they are very different as people – Markiz gestures big and talks loud and fast, Loreen is a little more thoughtful and picturesque in her explanations – it is clear that they have a lot to say. And stands for it. It is based on their upbringing with a hard-working single mother of six and a steady belief that you can do “what the hell you want, if you want”.
Loreen: – We have never been interviewed together before. How will this go? Will we be completely silent?
Markiz: – Silent? We? I will try not to speak in your mouth…
Markiz Tainton
Is Food Inspirer.
Age 35 years.
Lives in Stockholm.
Family Husband Kevin Tainton, children Liora and Sade.
Background Worked with marketing before her contribution to Sweden’s MasterChef paved the way for a new food career. Wrote the cookbook In the kitchen with Markiz.
Current As a TV chef on Godare TV and in Nyhetsmorgon, with the podcast Vass tunga and as a blogger.
Instagram @markiztainton
Loreen has been a part of the Swedish people’s collective consciousness since 2004 when her voice carried her to a fourth place in the first season of Idol. And became world famous when she won Eurovision 2012 with the immortal hit Euphoria. Markiz was head of marketing when she came third in 2014 in another beloved competition program, Sweden’s MasterChef. Since then, she has continued to inspire with her food on TV, on her blog and in social media.
“We are equal in our values, in our spirituality and that we don’t like small talk. We always end up directly in the deep questions.”
See you at a restaurant in central Stockholm. Loreen leans straight ahead and asks curiously: “Are you Aries or Pisces?”
DV: – I’m Libra.
L: – Me too! I can never put my own sign, it’s too similar to me to see I think. But okay, we meet in integrity, high intelligence… but have a hard time making decisions. I have to think!
DV: – I have to single money when I have to make a decision, because then I feel in my stomach if it is right or wrong when the coin landed.
L: – I use my boyfriend that way. If he says I should go right, I know I want to go left.
M: – She always does the opposite! If she asks if she should take the pants or the dress, I say what I don’t think, then she takes what I want. I’m the opposite. I just want to get it done.
L: – She is Gemini, she has no patience at all. She accepts everything as it is, but if someone walks in front of her slowly, she goes crazy.
Are you the same?
M: – We are equal in our values, in our spirituality and that we don’t like small talk. We always end up directly in the deep questions.
L: – Well, in the important things we are very similar. But we weren’t so similar when we were little.
Loreen & Markiz about growing up
Markiz and Loreen grew up with their mother and four siblings in Västerås. Then a stepfather joined in who had a daughter, and he and their mother had a child together.
M: – We are a big bunch. There will be no quiet family dinners – we are ten when we are together, not counting the respective and grandchildren.
Do you like to have a lot of people around you?
L: – I like it at times. But sometimes, or maybe quite often, I have to be myself.
M: – I love it. I have probably never even slept by myself.
L: – We lived alone with my mother for many years. We were all big siblings in some way, because when the eldest was gone, the next one went in and took responsibility. It was fantastic that we as a family, who still had so little, managed to create such a community and had so much security and support.
M: – We were so tight in age too. They were all teenagers at the same time and were each other’s best friends.
L: – It was very fun. But the situation also required us to work together to get everything rolling, and we did well.
M: – It came from my mother’s strength. I remember when we were going to make a family tree at school and I asked my mother what I should fill in. She said she was both my mother and father, so I wrote it at the top: “My mother is also my father.” Everyone thought it was weird. Although that was the case, she was our everything – she was 24 years old when she became single with six children.
“If she sees that we are losing ourselves in our careers, she tells us to come back to earth.”
What have you learned from your mother?
L: – To see such a young woman, who came from poor conditions in Morocco, who had no education or social safety net, succeeds… it is fantastic to come from someone who created something out of nothing. It has been painful at times, but overall it is a gift.
M: – She has adopted a new society, a new language and a new culture. At the same time, she has installed faith in ourselves in us children. The foundation of her upbringing has always been: I can, can you. The road may be longer, but you should not give up if you face resistance.
L: – Nevertheless, she has always had the principle that nothing must come before our mental and physical health. Go to hell with your education or career if it costs you that. If she sees that we are losing ourselves in our careers, she tells us to come back to earth.
Loreen & Markiz on creativity and passion
You have chosen creative careers. Was it clear early on that you were going that way?
M: – For Loreen it came early, for me it came later. I was very active, when I ran to football practice or hung out with the kids in the neighborhood, she was standing in our room singing to Whitney Houston. When I got home again, she yelled at Celine Dion.
L: – The music, writing and painting… it was a refuge for me.
M: – Still, did you study technology? I thought the school was really boring. I struggled, studied and took a degree. But it was not fun. Loreen was awesome at school.
L: – It was just about ego. It was a primary school teacher who said I couldn’t. Then a fire lit up in me – I would fucking show her. When I was going to choose high school, I chose a line of technology, the one that was absolutely most difficult and had the highest admission points. The curator looked at me questioningly and said: “But you like to paint and create, don’t you?”
M: – Music was your passion but I don’t remember that you thought you would become a star. However, I knew you would be. I remember when I would persuade you to apply for Idol…
L: – You tricked me! I was sitting in my room when you came in and said they were casting for the first season – suddenly I was auditioning there.
Loreen & Markiz on Idol, Euphoria and Sweden’s MasterChef
How was the Idol experience?
L: – It was traumatic, but it helped shape me into who I am today. It took several years before I could watch the program, but once I did, I saw that I wasn’t myself. The shoulders were high up, the eyes were scared… at the same time I would deliver week after week, smile and be charming. But the experience triggered a development in me. It was obvious that I would become an artist, but also that I could only become the artist I wanted to be if I could do it as 100 percent myself.
Still have you competed in the Melodifestivalen three times?
L: – I was skeptical of that platform. I’m not commercial in myself and that’s the most commercial thing you can do. So why do it then? There was probably a meaning to someone like me standing there, in my own way, barefoot and without glitter and glamor. Christer Björkman tried to get me to wear heels on me anyway, but I refused, haha. Today when I look back on it, it feels wonderful. It’s no coincidence that life took me there.
M: – I remember when you called me and played the first draft of Euphoria. I thought now I have to play my cards right and said something along the lines of, “Oh Loreen, are you really going to do Mello again?” Because then I knew she would do it.
L: – You fooled me again!
M: – I heard the finished song for the first time in the car on the way to your competition in Växjö. I shouted at my husband: “Listen to me Kevin, shit is about to go down! She’s going to win all the shit!” Kevin’s mother (Blossom Tainton – editor’s note) was in the same competition, so we agreed that he could vote for them every other time.
You should become a manager!
M: – I manipulate, control and set as the worst manager. But it’s out of love.
But Markiz, you also stood before a jury. Was it scary to apply for Sweden’s MasterChef?
M: – Once I had decided, it was just all in, all the way. I was nervous, but I had been on Loreen’s journey and seen how she dared. And with everything my mother dared to do… shouldn’t I be able to cook on TV then? You can’t be a coward. What’s the worst thing that can happen to me that I’m doing away with?
L: – You handle fear in a way that is damn healthy. Some who are afraid go into that feeling, then it escalates. You may be scared but you understand that it is a state of mind and not reality.
M: – When I was going to meet the jury, they had noticed that we were siblings. I had decided to do it on my own, but they were really trying to get me to say that we were sisters with leading questions like, “I recognize you, do you have siblings?” I replied, “Well, maybe you’ve met my brother? I have seven siblings, I don’t know who you mean.” They took the girl, then my food had to speak for itself.
What does food mean to you?
M: – It’s unbelievable that I get to work with something I love. Food, just like music, unites people. No one can own food or culture. Many people are afraid of differences, but with food you can break it. And we are more alike than we think. An older Swedish woman said that my Moroccan pots were reminiscent of what her mother used to cook for her when she was little. That’s the fun of food, you can erase prejudices. My kids eat everything but they have no idea where the food comes from.
What is it like to show what matters so much to someone to an audience?
M: – My siblings will always be my biggest fans. There I get the truth both when it’s good and bad. When I do TV, I don’t think of everyone who is going to watch. I think it’s my husband, my children, my mother, my father and my siblings who watch me. And they will say as it is.
Loreen & Markiz on feminism and Greta Thunberg
Is honesty a family trait?
L: – To say that something is good for a person you love, if you don’t think so, is a betrayal. A hammer is called a hammer. It’s something we got from our mother, the unconscious feminist I call her. She is the feminist of the feminists without knowing it.
“It is my firm belief that if the world is to come into balance, women must have power.”
Are you a feminist?
L: – It is my firm belief that if the world is to come into balance, women must have power. A woman makes decisions not only from the brain, but from the heart – from intuition. Something that a man doesn’t have as easy to connect to. Who must rule the world then so we make the right decision? A woman. She will never act on her big fat ego when it comes to the crunch. She will make her decisions from an empathic place. Do we want to save the world? Put a woman in power. Just look at Greta Thunberg – she is a little girl who started a whole world movement. There is a Greta in all of us.
M: – People must stop being afraid of women who take for granted. In all the workplaces I have been to, they have said that I am too forward and must think about letting the silent ones take their place. Why? Focus on your own place and take it. My husband is my exact opposite, then people automatically think I’m driving over him. No, I don’t. But if I were to do it now, would he have to blame himself? Haha.
L: – A big reason why I snagged myself a few years ago was to come to terms with the image of what a woman should be. I hid behind my hair, it was a way for me to hide my power. I had heard from many people that people will be afraid of me if I do something like this: “You have to smile and be happy and grateful.” Fuck that! I snatched my hair and said: Here you have me! And people got scared. Maybe that was what was needed. I will not have to pretend to make others feel safe.
M: – You can give space to other people and still take your own place, but you should not compromise with yourself.
Loreen & Markiz on the family crisis and eternal loyalty
Have you always been close?
M: – We were incredibly close throughout our upbringing, but since one day it was as if everyone came to the realization: Who am I as an individual? So we broke free a little and did our own thing. Five years ago, I met a medium who said that I longed for my and my sister’s relationship when we were little, and that something would happen in my life that would give the relationship new roots. Shortly after, I lost my first child, Marvin.
“When the worst happened and I lost my child, it didn’t matter where they were in the world, everyone was there as soon as I needed them.”
L: – Traumatic experiences result in rough personal development if you are open. We found each other again in the dark.
M: – I remember when we were at BB. You and mom were there, and I was looking up at you, and you were looking up at the ceiling when Marvin left the body … From that day on, something completely different has blossomed. In the past, I have expected so much from you in my subconscious because I have always been able to lean towards my big sister. But then I realized that we needed to find our relationship, our sisterhood, as adults when no one is responsible for anyone else.
L: – It was an extreme sadness. For me, it was a wake-up call. Ever since Euphoria, everything had gone so fast. By the time the years had passed and I noticed that time had disappeared. So much had happened in my siblings’ lives, and I thought I had been present but I had not really been. I went from one city to another, one country to another, year in and year out – I was stuck in the carousel. But what was important? Success? Did it fill me, did it make me whole? Everything went so fast that I didn’t have time to feel it, but in the back of my mind I felt that something was missing. I could not locate what it was. When we lost Marvin, I woke up.
M: – The relationship we had was so safe, so it was not scary to break free and do their thing because we knew we were always there. When the worst happened and I lost my child, it didn’t matter where they were in the world, everyone was there as soon as I needed them.
L: – Loyalty between us is a gift. It doesn’t matter what happens, when shit hits the fan everyone’s there. It’s powerful. Today we are closer than ever.
3 fast questions with Loreen & Markiz
Which of Markiz’s dishes is your favorite?
L: – Markiz prepares a magical tagine stew with lamb, prunes and fried almonds. With more bread. And then I have to get the chili on the side. She does not cook strong food, maybe because she has such a strong personality.
Which of Loreen’s songs is your favorite?
M: – It’s probably She’s the one, the acoustic version. Or My heart is refusing me, when she made it stripped down on Nyhetsmorgon. I got goosebumps.
What quality in each other can you envy?
L: – I’m damn inspired by Markiz’s ability to be proactive and deal with negative thoughts. She never allows them to hinder her in her personal development. Her drive is incredible.
M: – Loreen’s creativity is fantastic. Whether it’s a small Instagram post, a song or a music video, her creativity shines through. It’s in her DNA, and she’s not letting anyone steer her away from her vision. At the same time, she doesn’t run over people, but instead makes everyone feel included and invested in the idea.
FOTO CHARLI LJUNG/LUND LUND
STYLING MARIA MONTTI/LUND LUND
HÅR KHADDY GASSAMA/SWEDISH HAIR MAFFIA
MAKEUP JEANETTE TÖRNQVIST/LUND LUND
FOTOASSISTENT HINKE TOVLE, ZELMA SCHELIN OCH FEDERICA POIANA
• Source: https://www.expressen.se/damernasvarld/livsstil/intervju/loreen-och-markiz-ser-mamma-att-vi-forlorar-oss-i-karriaren
• Photoshoot: https://www.lundlund.com/make-up/jeanette-tornqvist/editorial/gallery/damernas-varld-sisterhood-loreen-and-markiz-tainton
• Translation: via Google Translate, the translation may not be completely accurate