ristane Banon was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Île-de-France on 13 June 1979.Banon earned a diploma from the Ecole Supérieure de Journalisme de Paris in 2000, and initially worked in casual jobs as a journalist, as an anchorwoman on a television show about new information and communication technologies, and as a sport journalist. She was employed in the politics department, and later the cultural department, of the French weekly Paris-Match, then worked at the daily newspaper Le Figaro.
She published her first book, a long essay entitled Erreurs avouées…(au masculin) in November 2002 (Anne Carrière Ed.). She wrote her first novel J’ai oublié de la tuer using childhood memories as subject matter. It was published in September 2004 by éditions Anne Carrière (édition Le Livre de poche n° 30743).
In 2007, Banon alleged on a television program that she was the victim of an attempted rape by Dominique Strauss-Kahn during an interview while she was researching Erreurs avouées in 2002.She described Strauss-Kahn as a "rutting chimpanzee" but his name was censored from the broadcast.On 16 May 2011, her lawyer said she was planning to file a complaint against Strauss-Kahn.
