Award-winning artist Lou Bega has left behind his womanising ways and is now a happily married man with two young children. In an exclusive interview with The Watsonia Bugle, Bega has spoken of his new-found love of the “simple life”, changing nappies, and going for long walks with his wife.

Bega was the man behind the hit single ‘Mambo No.5’ which had people dancing all across the globe from its release in 1999 into the early 2000s. The version popularised by Bega was actually a cover of a song originally released 50 years earlier in 1949, but his modern interpretation was a great success, sitting atop the Australian charts for an impressive eight weeks. The song also topped the charts in the UK, and in many countries in Europe, including an epic 20-week sit on top of the French charts.

Bega said, “For a couple of years there, my life was a living embodiment on my chart-topping hit single. It was a different girl every night, sometimes multiple girls. They were wild times.” He even said that, for a month or two, he only slept with women whose names were in his hit song, saying “Yeah that’s right, it was a little bit of Monica, Erica, Rita and Tina. It did limit my options somewhat, but I was that flushed for female company that I was able to put that kind of criteria on and still have success.”

These days, life for Bega has changed significantly from his halcyon days. He explained, “Around the mid-2000s my popularity waned quite markedly. The decline was accelerated by my inability to produce a follow-up hit single, and so I was slapped with the ‘one hit wonder’ tag. Excuse the pun, but that was not a hit with the ladies.”

Not long after, Bega met the woman who would soon become his wife. He said, “This beautiful woman came into my life and that was when I realised it was time to settle down. Ironically, her name is Rita, so it turns out Rita really was all I needed.”

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