Plastic Bertrand's Lip-Sync Admission 23 Years Later

MAY 15 1987 · 12:10

Plastic Bertrand · "Amour, amour (Luxembourg 1987)" · Luxembourg · 1987 Placement: 21 · Score: 4 · Language: French · Composers: Lou Deprijck · Venue: Centenary Palace · Host: Brussels, Belgium · Type: scandal · Broadcast: color analog Plastic Bertrand — Belgian punk-disco provocateur, real name Roger Jouret — represents Luxembourg in Brussels with 'Amour, amour', finishing 21st of 22 with 4 points. The performance is competent. In 2006, a Brussels court rules that Jouret did NOT sing vocals on his 1977 breakthrough hit 'Ça plane pour moi'; forensic linguistic analysis of the Picard regional accent identifies the actual vocalist as the song's producer, Lou Deprijck. In 2010, Jouret admits publicly for the first time that he didn't sing on the hit that made him famous. Context Deprijck had been insisting on his actual vocal role since at least the 1990s. The 2006 court case was a royalty dispute. The 1987 Eurovision vocal was Jouret's actual voice — he had trained himself to match the Picard vocal style. The admission fractured his artistic identity. Legacy The Plastic Bertrand lip-sync saga is now a classic case study in pop-authorship deception, frequently compared to Milli Vanilli. Jouret continued performing his catalogue without 'Ça plane pour moi' at several points in the 2010s. The 1987 Eurovision appearance is a separate, genuine performance — archival evidence that he could actually sing.