English journalist, comedian, YouTuber, and television presenter Amelia Dimoldenberg invited “My Money Don’t Jiggle Jiggle” star Louis Theroux on “Chicken Shop Date” in April. Not just this, the rap recently became a part of Shakira’s TikTok Challenge on the Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Louis is more than this rap! Read on to learn more about this rising star.
Who is Louis Theroux?
Louis Sebastian Theroux is a British-American documentary filmmaker, journalist, broadcaster, podcaster and author. He graduated from Magdalen College, Oxford where he read Modern History, graduating with first-class honors.
Born in Singapore, the 52-year-old journalist and broadcaster was born to an English mother Anne (née Castle) and American travel writer and novelist Paul Theroux. His paternal grandmother, Anne Dittami, was an Italian-American grammar school teacher, while his paternal grandfather, Albert Eugène Theroux, was a French-Canadian salesman for the American Leather Oak company.
Theroux holds dual British and American citizenship. He is the nephew of novelist Alexander Theroux and writer Peter Theroux. His older brother, Marcel, is a writer and television presenter. His cousin, Justin, is an actor and screenwriter.
Theroux moved with his family to England when he was one year old and was brought up in Catford, in London. He went from primary school to Tower House School in East Sheen in 1979 or 1980 and then to Westminster School. There, he befriended comedians Adam Buxton and Joe Cornish, and future Liberal Democrat leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, with whom he traveled to America.
Theroux’s Career
After graduating from Magdalen College, he moved to the US to work as a journalist for Metro Silicon Valley and Spy. He also performed in several school theatre productions including Bugsy Malone as Looney Bergonzi, Ritual for Dolls as the Army Officer, and The Splendour Falls as the Minstrel. Â
He moved into television as the presenter of offbeat segments on Michael Moore’s TV Nation series and later began to host his own documentaries, including Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends, When Louis Met…, and several BBC Two specials. He has received two British Academy Television Awards and a Royal Television Society Television Award.
He has written for several publications, including Hip Hop Connection and The Idler. He is known for making other documentaries like My Scientology Movie and Forbidden America. Louis has also written three books:
- The Call of the Weird: Travels in American Subcultures, in Britain in 2005. In it, he recounts his return to the United States to learn about the lives of some of the people he had featured in his television programmes.
- A professional memoir, Gotta Get Theroux This, in September 2019.
- Theroux the Keyhole, a diary recorded during the UKÂ COVID-19 lockdowns, in November 2021.
In April 2020, during a COVID-19 lockdown, Theroux started the BBC Radio 4 podcast Grounded with Louis Theroux at his home, in which he interviews well-known people he finds particularly fascinating and to whom he would not necessarily have had a chance to speak before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Theroux’s Personal Life
Louis Theroux was married to Susanna Kleeman from 1998 to 2001. He revealed that he married his then-girlfriend because she was “having trouble finding work…legally”. He revealed that they never considered themselves married in the full sense. Theroux called it a “marriage of convenience”.
Theroux calls himself an atheist. In 2012, Theroux married his long-time girlfriend, Nancy Strang. They share three sons. In 2018, Theroux’s Twitter account was hacked by cybersecurity firm Insinia as part of its attempt to highlight a longstanding security flaw in Twitter’s system.
During a 2018 interview with The Guardian, Theroux revealed that he has a fear of flying. He stated in 2020 that, while he acknowledges that cannabis is an intoxicant and can trigger certain mental health issues, therefore, he supports its legalisation.
Theroux’s Fame with Jiggle Jiggle
In 2022, Theroux went viral after his performance of a rap on the YouTube show, Chicken Shop Date, which he composed himself for an episode of Weird Weekends. It was autotuned by a TikTok user and turned into a sound, playable on the user’s videos.
The trend has seen users, mainly young adults and adolescents, miming over Theroux’s rap and dancing to the enhanced rendition of “My money don’t jiggle jiggle, it folds…”. It has led to more footage being unearthed of Theroux’s rapping ability, leading him to be dubbed “a massive hip-hop head” by the BBC.
On March 16, the producers @dukeandjones added autotune and backup music to the clip of Theroux rapping as part of their “Adding autotune to random videos” series on TikTok. Their version of the clip racked up over 43 million views and nearly 6 million likes.
On 14 May 2022, it was announced that Theroux had produced a full version of the rap with Manchester-based DJ duo Duke & Jones, called “Jiggle Jiggle. Not only this, his rap became a part of Jimmy Fallon’s TikTok Challenge for “Queen of Latin Music” Shakira.
On The Tonight Show, Jimmy Fallon played the video and explained to Shakira that the song is by Duke & Jones with Louis Theroux, and the dance is choreographed by Jess Qualter and Brooke Blewitt.
The two then turned towards the screen as the song played, “My money don’t jiggle jiggle, it folds, I like to see you wiggle wiggle, for sure, It wants to make me dribble dribble, you know, Riding in my Fiat, you really have to see it…” Shakira and Jimmy both took up the challenge flawlessly.
Like any popular TikTok song, it soon got its own dance created by Jess Qualter. In the original dance video, the two friends perform the understated dance that quickly gained traction. Their video has over 33 million likes and 4.5 million likes. The song has been used in over 1.2 million videos. Well, the song certainly is stuck in my head. What about you?
