Past Blast: Jordy had Whitney Houston watching in disbelief
Past Blast: That time French kid star Jordy Lemoine sang his then-hit electronic dance track before a live audience that included a very intrigued Whitney Houston at the 1994 World Music Awards in Monaco.
The song was “Dur dur d’être bébé! (It’s Tough to Be a Baby)”, the pint-sized dance-pop oddity that had already turned Jordy into an international phenomenon before he was old enough to understand just how unusual any of this was. He was only six when he hit the World Music Awards stage on May 4, 1994.
Past Blast
Jordy at the 1994 World Music Awards
Six-year-old Jordy brought his global hit “Dur dur d’être bébé!” to Monaco in front of a room packed with major stars — including Whitney Houston, Prince and Kylie Minogue.
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By then, Jordy had already made chart history. “Dur dur d’être bébé!” spent 15 consecutive weeks at No. 1 in France, and in June 1993 he became the youngest male artist ever to enter the Billboard Hot 100, debuting there at just five years and 156 days old.
The room made the whole thing even better. Whitney Houston, Prince, Kylie Minogue and Prince Albert of Monaco were among the famous faces watching the six-year-old work the stage. Houston’s reaction has become part of the clip’s charm years later: less scandalized than wonderfully puzzled, watching this tiny French pop star command a room full of global heavyweights.
There is also a perfect little chart-history twist hiding behind the moment. Jordy’s enormous French No. 1 run with “Dur dur d’être bébé!” was eventually knocked off the top by Whitney’s “I Will Always Love You.” So seeing the two worlds collide in the same room a year later makes the footage even more deliciously early-’90s.
Jordy’s child-star run was short, strange and absolutely of its time, but for a minute there he really was everywhere. And yes — watching Whitney try to process the whole thing is still part of the fun.
Jordy at the 1994 World Music Awards in Monaco
INYIM Media revisits Jordy’s six-year-old World Music Awards appearance and the star-packed audience watching it unfold.
Source: World Music Awards; Guinness World Records; Whitney Houston official site.
