Paul Young almost duetted with Whitney Houston, but turned down the song on offer

9 December 2021, 15:48

Paul Young reveals how he almost duetted with Whitney Houston

Paul Young has recorded a number of classic duets during his career, but he almost sang with one of the world's greatest ever artists.

Speaking on Smooth's Famous Firsts podcast, Paul Young told host Jenni Falconer that he came very close to singing with a young Whitney Houston after her first album.

Sadly, the song wasn't quite up to scratch for Paul, and he missed out on the chance.

"They expected me to do it with… well, they wanted me to do it with somebody like Whitney Houston, or someone like that. Because I shot myself in the foot with that one.

"Because they wanted me to do one with Whitney after her first album.

"They sent me the song, and I said, 'Yeah, I’d love to do a duet with Whitney Houston, but I really don’t like that song.' And the producer had written it! So I didn’t get asked again. I fluffed that."

Instead, he later recorded the song 'Senza una Donna' with Zucchero, which turned out to be one of his biggest ever hits, so it wasn't all bad news.

"But that’s the kind of thing that they were hoping I would do. But they’d never heard of Zucchero. And they thought, 'Why do you want to do that?' And I said, 'Because it works.' And it was incredibly successful."

Paul Young appears in the latest episode of Smooth's Famous Firsts podcast, where Jenni Falconer speaks to pop music icons about the various firsts throughout their career so far.

Previous episodes have featured Ed Sheeran, Michael Bolton and Westlife among others, with future guests including Tony Hadley and Marti Pellow.

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