What happened to the most underrated participants of “Star Factory”: Balakireva, Buzhilova, Kaufman, Rzhevskaya Stars

Julia Buzhilova took part in the very first “Star Factory”. She joined the project at the invitation of Igor Matvienko, who already knew Julia as a composer. Buzhilova immediately began to stand out from the background of other participants. She was closed and mysterious, wrote unformatted songs, boycotted dance classes, as if she would not become a bright pop star. Her main hit of the project was the song “Sleep”.

She did not make it to the finals, but Matvienko, contrary to the rules, praised the talented participant – he announced on the air that he was giving Buzhilova a certificate for 1 million rubles to record an album and shoot a video. As Julia later said, she never saw the money. No one was in a hurry to untangle it either. In 2003, the artist recorded an unexpected duet with Renata Litvinova, but then she disappeared from the screens again.

“I didn’t really want to go to clubs and say, ‘Well, marry me.’ I would rather sit at home, not eat or drink anything, than ask for it, “said Yulia in one of her rare interviews.

At the invitation of Matvienko, she wrote several songs for the participants of the fifth factory, and then began working as a singing teacher at the Matvienko MAMA Music Academy. Buzhilova categorically refuses photo shoots and interviews and devotes herself fully to her students. Almost nothing is known about her personal life, except that in 2006 Julia Buzhilova gave birth to a daughter Alexandra.

When Sasha Balakireva appeared in Star Factory – 5, it seemed that she would go far. Clockwork red-haired girl immediately attracted all attention and was very organic on stage. But everything turned out differently.

Although Sasha became a finalist in the project, her popularity began to decline. She tried to restart her stage career as part of the KuBa group with Anna Kulikova, but the team broke up a few years later, and even after participating in the Main Stage project in 2015, there was no breakthrough.

Then Balakireva entered GITIS and began working in the musical theater. She no longer has ambitions to conquer the pop scene, now the girl is interested in more “higher” genres. Sasha continues to record songs and occasionally performs in Moscow. You can follow the life of the ex-producer on her social networks, but there she talks more about her work than her personal life. A few years ago, Balakireva admitted that she did not have a boyfriend.

Elena Kaufman was also on the fifth “Star Factory”, which was led by Alla Pugacheva, but, unlike Balakireva, she did not last long in the project. Nevertheless, the singer managed to be remembered by the audience for her original songs, romantic vocals and decadent image. Kaufman came to the exhibition as an almost ready-made artist – she was a member of the group Mission: Anticyclone. Like Buzhilova, Kaufman seemed unformatted for a pop project: she listened to Bjork, Radiohead and Portishead and composed songs on the guitar. The most famous was her song “I’m off the ground.”

Despite his early departure from the project, Kaufman first took hold in show business. While others were still participating in “factory” competitions, she already had her debut solo album in hand. The press also saw Elena as a great artist. “Compared to Kaufman, the whole Star Factory looks like a provincial kaveen,” they wrote at the time.

But now there is very little information about Elena. It is only known that she is married and has a child.

Maria Rzhevskaya is one of the brightest participants in Star Factory 2, where Maxim Fadeev was the producer. Her song “When I Become a Cat” became an absolute hit at the time and is sung by many today without any problems.

According to the results of the project, Rzhevskaya took fifth place, but after the final, Fadeev promoted her more actively than the winner Polina Gagarina. But after the tour, Maria suddenly disappeared from show business and managed to release only two new songs. Instead of a career, Rzhevskaya focused on family life. She married the top manager of ARS Vyacheslav Kormiltsev, gave birth to a daughter, and then emigrated to Great Britain with her husband. There, Rzhevskaya received an acting education and adopted the pseudonym Masha Kaya. She took part in theater productions and gave concerts in small nightclubs. In recent years, Rzhevskaja has also devoted herself to design.