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They say it’s never too late to achieve your dreams, although trying to pursue a career as a pro athlete on the verge of your 50th birthday is a pretty bold move. However, that hasn’t stopped one of the members of LMFAO from trying to pivot to tennis at a relatively late stage in his life.
Anyone who attended a party around the turn of the 2010s is intimately familiar with LMFAO, the EDM group comprised of two guys who performed as Redfoo (real name Stefan Gordy) and Sky Blu (Skyler Gordy, his half-nephew) that took the music world by storm with the help of hits like “Shots,” “Sexy and I Know It,” and “Party Rock Anthem.”
The neon-soaked duo was the encapsulation of a fascinating strain of the MDMA-fueled Party Bros who Had A Moment around the same time they burst onto the scene, and they spent a few years dominating the charts (and landing a spot at the Super Bowl halftime show alongside Madonna) before announcing they were taking an “indefinite hiatus” in 2012.
Redfoo took an interesting path on his journey to musical stardom, as he was a fairly accomplished youth tennis player who had his career derailed by an injury. He eventually attempted to make money as a day trader before turning his attention to the music industry—a pivot that was somewhat easy when you consider he went to middle school with will.i.am and his dad, Berry Gordy, was the founder of Motown Records.
Gordy dated women’s tennis player Victoria Azarenka for a few years in the first half of the 2010s and even attempted to qualify for the U.S. Open in 2013 by partaking in a wild card tournament where he was eliminated after losing his first match in straight sets.
According to TennisHead, he didn’t fare much better after making his professional debut close to five months after celebrating his 49th birthday when he took part in the ITF M15 tournament in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt on Wednesday.
Gordy was matched up with Leyton Rivera of Norway, a 23-year-old who was ranked 1,299th in the world when they faced off in a showdown where the latter earned a 6-1 victory in the first set before putting things away with a 6-0 showing in the second.
It’s unclear if Redfoo plans to seriously pursue this venture going forward, but you have to respect the hustle.