Belgian singer Sandra Kim (October 5, 1972) was just a teenager when she was shot to stardom as she won the 1986 Eurovision Song Contest. Born Sandra Caldarone to a hairdresser mother and an accordionist father, she started singing as a child but her first brush with fame arrived in 1985 when she came in fourth at Milan’s Ambrogino D'oro Festival with the song “Ami ami”. In 1986, she became the youngest contestant to ever win the Eurovision Song Contest with the song “J’aime la vie” at the age of thirteen. The single proved a huge success, selling almost one and a half million copies worldwide, and was followed by the release of an album of the same name that year. After lending her voice to the theme song of French animated series Il était une fois... la vie, she released Bien Dans Ma Peau (1988) and topped the Belgian charts for two consecutive months with the 1990 Luc Steeno duet “Bel Me, schrijf Me”. Following the release of two bilingual albums in the early 90s, she had another smash hit with “Door Veel Van Mij Te Houden,” a duet with Frank Galan that stayed at the top of the Belgian charts and was included in the album Onvergetelijk (1997). This success revitalized Caldarone’s career as she delivered another hit with the 1998 Céline Dion cover “Heel Diep in Mijn Hart.” Thirteen years later, she surprised her fans with Make Up (2011), a collection of covers by Belgian artists such as David Bartholomé, Jacques Brel, and Salvatore Adamo. Subsequently, Caldarone made the news again in 2020 by winning the first season of music reality TV show The Masked Singer, after which she released the single “Who Are You,” hitting Number 47 on the Ultratop Singles chart.
