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Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.

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Speaker 2: Hi, I'm Ryan Seacrest and I'm Brian Dunkleman.

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Speaker 3: And this is the Kodak Theater in Hollywood, home of

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Speaker 3: the Academy Awards and possibly the most televised theater in

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Speaker 3: the world. Three months from now, live on this very stage,

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Speaker 3: and as yet unknown talent will be launched into superstardom.

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Speaker 3: We don't know who that is yet. Right now, they

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Speaker 3: could be parking cars or even waiting on tables.

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Speaker 4: Who knows.

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Speaker 3: What we do know is by the end of the summer,

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Speaker 3: that person's life will change forever because you at home

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Speaker 3: decide who will become the next American Idol.

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Speaker 1: It's June eleventh, two thousand and two, and a new

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Speaker 1: show called American Idol has just debuted on Fox. It

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Speaker 1: was competing with some of the biggest shows of the day,

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Speaker 1: although scripted stuff was in reruns by the summer to

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Speaker 1: set the scene. Frazier, Scrubs, Girlfriends, Buffy, Small Bill, Gilmore Girls,

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Speaker 1: on and on. If you were there, you know, if

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Speaker 1: you don't, you weren't missing out on as much as

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Speaker 1: millennials tell you you were. American Idol's main competition that

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Speaker 1: was airing a new episode was a rival reality show

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Speaker 1: on ABC called The Mole.

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Speaker 5: Ten strangers playing from up to one million dollars, among them,

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Speaker 5: a saboteur, a trader, the Mole, the winner, the one

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Speaker 5: who answers the question who is the Mole?

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Speaker 4: Oh?

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Speaker 1: Is that Anderson Cooper pre CNN. Yes it is And

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Speaker 1: one of the funniest things to me in the world

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Speaker 1: is that Anderson Cooper. Iconic NEPO Baby says that nine

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Speaker 1: to eleven woke him up and got him to return

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Speaker 1: to Centrist News instead of hosting The Mole and The

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Speaker 1: Mole Season one Unbeatable reality TV. You can watch it

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Speaker 1: online for free anyways. American Idols path to being on

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Speaker 1: American primetime TV was not smooth. The format was cribbed

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Speaker 1: from popular talent shows from overseas like Pop Idol in

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Speaker 1: the UK and Pop Stars in New Zealand, and the

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Speaker 1: guys who made these shows had a big hand in

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Speaker 1: bringing it to the US. Producers Simon Fuller and Nigel

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Speaker 1: Lithgow brought it to the States, but Fox Network owner

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Speaker 1: and feminist icon Rupert Murdoch wasn't sure that this would

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Speaker 1: play in the US, and the show only made it

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Speaker 1: onto the network because his daughter Elizabeth had seen Pop

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Speaker 1: Idol in the UK and thought that it would work

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Speaker 1: in America, and boy did it work. American Idol won

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Speaker 1: the night in ratings when it debuted nine point nine

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Speaker 1: viewers tuned in to the Moles six point nine and

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Speaker 1: a Fraser reruns seven point seven million. Excellent showing from

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Speaker 1: Fraser heads there all over my face. The format of

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Speaker 1: the show would be tweaked many times in the years

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Speaker 1: to come. One of the most major examples is that

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Speaker 1: Ryan Seacrest went on to host Idol for over twenty

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Speaker 1: years and Brian Dunkleman quit after a season. Whoops. Pop

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Speaker 1: Idol had four judges, but American Idol only managed to

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Speaker 1: get three to commit in time for the show to

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Speaker 1: start taping, and so.

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Speaker 3: We have first up Grammy Award winner Randy Jackson.

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Speaker 6: I think the main thing really for me is uniqueness,

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Speaker 6: having a different, unique style of different sounding voice, and

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Speaker 6: also just having you know, phenomenal talent.

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Speaker 3: Singer, songwriter, dancer, choreographer and pop diva legend all Abdul.

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Speaker 7: Would you think my perspective would be absolutely different than

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Speaker 7: the other two judges because I'm an artist.

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Speaker 3: And the acid tongue star of pop idol in the UK,

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Speaker 3: Simon Cown.

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Speaker 8: We are going to tell people who cannot sing and

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Speaker 8: who have no talent that they have no talent and

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Speaker 8: that never makes you popular. We are going to show

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Speaker 8: the audition process as it really is because shows in

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Speaker 8: the past have not shown the brutality of auditions.

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Speaker 9: Auditions are horrible places to.

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Speaker 8: Go and I'm warning you now you are about to

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Speaker 8: enter the audition from.

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Speaker 1: Hell, whether you were a reviewer or not. Randy Jackson,

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Speaker 1: Paula Abdull, and Simon Cowell are one of the most

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Speaker 1: iconic millennial pop culture trios ever. They were perfectly calibrated

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Speaker 1: for the early two thousands. Paula was the nice one,

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Speaker 1: Randy was the constructive one, and Simon was evil and

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Speaker 1: sometimes funny. He was evil, and because he was evil,

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Speaker 1: he had a lot of success. The most significant example

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Speaker 1: is less than a decade later, he was one of

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Speaker 1: the inventors of One Direction. Do you understand the level

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Speaker 1: of evil that requires? Simon Cowell was the boy conjurer,

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Speaker 1: and his criticism of singers he thought were bad weren't

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Speaker 1: just cutting the cold, get extremely personal and were often

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Speaker 1: what people were talking about the next day, even more

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Speaker 1: so than the performances themselves.

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Speaker 8: Yes, you have personality, but dogs have personality.

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Speaker 9: The audition of him being on the shoe was horrible.

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Speaker 1: Here's how the show worked. When it aired, Contestants between

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Speaker 1: sixteen and twenty four years old were encouraged to come

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Speaker 1: out and audition in droves across the country. As the

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Speaker 1: production started to weave through the most talented contestants, or,

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Speaker 1: as would become clear, the contestants that would play the

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Speaker 1: best on TV. You'll see what I mean and immediately,

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Speaker 1: American Idol auditions were huge. Thousands of contestants would line

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Speaker 1: up outside stadiums across the country. The record ended up

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Speaker 1: being twenty thousand people in Philadelphia in two thousand and seven,

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Speaker 1: and hopefuls would be whittled away round after round, and

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Speaker 1: only around one hundred and fifty people would actually make

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Speaker 1: it to the judges table. From here, good singers are

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Speaker 1: pushed to something called Hollywood Week. Judges would continue to

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Speaker 1: eliminate contestants through the semifinals, at which point the decision

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Speaker 1: would be turned over to the public. Voting was done

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Speaker 1: first by calling a telephone number, then you could text

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Speaker 1: a vote starting in the second season, and you couldn't

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Speaker 1: vote online until twenty ten, and finally at the end

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Speaker 1: of the season a winner was announced in a gigantic

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Speaker 1: finale at the Dolby Theater in la And in those

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Speaker 1: early seasons, the prize was massive, a major record deal

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Speaker 1: with as many as six albums, attached management from Idols

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Speaker 1: in house representatives, and a two hundred and fifty thousand

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Speaker 1: dollars advance. As the show grew less popular, the prizes

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Speaker 1: dwindled down to a potential single and closer to sixty

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Speaker 1: thousand dollars. If you were around for the early Idol years,

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Speaker 1: you really couldn't avoid it, and the show was turning

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Speaker 1: out genuine stars. Maybe this is me being nine coming out,

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Speaker 1: but the thrill of seeing Kelly Clarkson demolish one Justin Guarini.

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Speaker 3: The winner of American Idol two thousand and two is.

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Speaker 1: Kelly plugs incredible and she immediately became one of the

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Speaker 1: biggest pop stars in the world. And sure, that nearly

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Speaker 1: ten million viewership for the premiere was impressive, but the

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Speaker 1: show gained serious steam throughout that first season. When Kelly

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Speaker 1: Clarkson won, over twenty two million people were watching, and

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Speaker 1: that just doesn't happen anymore on Network TV, and thankfully

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Speaker 1: Kelly Clarkson is heure with us to this day. We

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Speaker 1: love her. She's a legend. This success continued for American

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Speaker 1: Idol into its second season, which featured the very wholesome

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Speaker 1: rivalry between Ruben Stutdared and Clay Aiken member them.

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Speaker 3: The winner of American Idol two thousand and three is

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Speaker 3: Ruben Stutner.

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Speaker 1: Ruben Studdard eventually won, but they both went on to

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Speaker 1: find mild success separately, but in a twist that I love,

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Speaker 1: they found even more success when they continued working together.

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Speaker 1: Since they were on American Idol, Ruben and Clay have

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Speaker 1: done a Christmas show together on Broadway. Hi, I'm Ruben

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Speaker 1: Studdard and he's the person that lost to Ruben Starter

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Speaker 1: and we're talking about Ruben and Clay's first annual Christmas

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Speaker 1: Carol Family Fun Pageants Spectacular Reunion Show. I mean, you

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Speaker 1: gotta love them. The two tour together for the twenty

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Speaker 1: year anniversary of their original competition on Idol and recently

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Speaker 1: appeared on the Masks as two Beats b ee Ts

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Speaker 1: like the Vegetable. Twenty years after they met, They appeared

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Speaker 1: as the Vegetable beats on the masked singer singing a

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Speaker 1: Michael Bublay cover. If you don't believe me, it sounds beautiful.

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Speaker 10: Coming bad.

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Speaker 1: But I can't stress enough they are dressed as glamorous

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Speaker 1: root vegetables. But when Ruben and Clay were competing on

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Speaker 1: Idol back in two thousand and three, this was even

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Speaker 1: bigger than Kelly Clarkson's moment. Thirty eight million people watched

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Speaker 1: the finale that year when Ruben stuttered one. That's twice

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Speaker 1: as many people who watched the Oscars this past year.

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Speaker 1: American Idol was a star making vehicle. The early winners

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Speaker 1: and runners up became household names, and many had real

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Speaker 1: staying power. In case you forgot names like Jennifer Hudson,

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Speaker 1: Carrie Underwood, Jordan Sparks, Adam Lambert, David Archiletta, and Catherine

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Speaker 1: McPhee were all Idle contestants. And it's not hard to

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Speaker 1: understand why American Idol was such a major force. We

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Speaker 1: can talk all day about how reality TV was really

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Speaker 1: starting to boom around this time, but I think the

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Speaker 1: simplest explanation is that this show literally narrativized the American dream.

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Speaker 1: Most of these contestants were young people from the middle

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Speaker 1: of nowhere, and the show really leaned into that. In

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Speaker 1: classic reality TV fashion, the most promising contestants would be

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Speaker 1: framed adoringly as talented kids with big dreams, like it's

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Speaker 1: impossible to not root for these people based on how

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Speaker 1: the show frames them. Hello Kelly, Hello, I'm a big

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Speaker 1: fan of you. By the way, I just turned twenty

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Speaker 1: the same girl day birthday comings And by the third

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Speaker 1: season of American Idol, audiences were well aware that the

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Speaker 1: show was not a fluke. But as I recall, there

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Speaker 1: was more than one type of American Idol viewer. There

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Speaker 1: were the people who watched every single episode and obsessively

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Speaker 1: called and texted in their votes for their favorite people

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Speaker 1: in the later rounds. And there were people who were

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Speaker 1: mainly in to watch the auditions. I was one of those.

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Speaker 1: And if you don't watch for the good auditions, and

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Speaker 1: you won't, you were watching for the terrible auditions. Weirdly,

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Speaker 1: we talked about this phenomenon recently on sixteenth Minute. People

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Speaker 1: who first experienced their fifteen minutes of fame after being

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Speaker 1: shown in some public freak show styles setting, and that

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Speaker 1: is kind of what we're looking at here people who

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Speaker 1: were not good, and it was unclear in the way

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Speaker 1: American Idol framed them if they knew they weren't good.

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Speaker 1: But here they are being paraded on national television so

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Speaker 1: that the famous three judges can confirm that they are

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Speaker 1: indeed not very good. Oh good.

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Speaker 4: By that does.

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Speaker 1: These kinds of contestants range from people who actually do

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Speaker 1: think they are very talented singers to people who just

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Speaker 1: kind of seem to want to be on TV for

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Speaker 1: whatever reason, whether it's personal gain or just attention. And

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Speaker 1: as we now know, this is a kind of person

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Speaker 1: someone who would want to appear on as many reality

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Speaker 1: TV shows as possible. But at the time this wasn't

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Speaker 1: quite as understood, so the contestants on Idol who were

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Speaker 1: bad were framed as completely delusional.

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Speaker 7: I want to be the next American Idol, and I

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Speaker 7: want to make it to Hollywood, and it's been my

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Speaker 7: all time dream for a long time to become a big,

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Speaker 7: famous singer performer, and this is just one way to

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Speaker 7: do it if I make it.

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Speaker 1: Thank you an elementary school Jamie was not alone in

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Speaker 1: Reveling and a Bad audition. They were so popular that

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Speaker 1: Fox would air entire specials around them. During season one,

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Speaker 1: they aired something called The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,

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Speaker 1: a whole special about auditions, and while a bad audition

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Speaker 1: would occasionally make for conversation at the water cooler, something

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Speaker 1: that allegedly happened, it wasn't until season three of Idle that,

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Speaker 1: at least for a time, one bad audition overshadowed the

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Speaker 1: eventual winner. And the winner that season is incredible and

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Speaker 1: thankfully is successful to this day. It was Fantasia Burrino,

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Speaker 1: and she was nominated for an oscar last year. But

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Speaker 1: for a time, the most famous person to be on

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Speaker 1: Idol in two thousand and four was someone who never

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Speaker 1: made it to Hollywood Week. And you can tell how

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Speaker 1: you're supposed to feel about the audition based on how

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Speaker 1: this contestant's introduction is edited. For comparison, here is how

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Speaker 1: we meet eventual winner Fantasia.

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Speaker 2: Even nineteen year old Fantasia Burrino.

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Speaker 1: Can predict how the judges will react. I predict that

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Speaker 1: Randy's going to like way years Paula.

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Speaker 11: I think she's gonna like, but.

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Speaker 7: I think I'm gonna have a little trouble out of common.

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Speaker 1: But I'm ready for Simon A ready for Simon. And

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Speaker 1: here is how we meet the subject of this week's

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Speaker 1: sixteenth minute.

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Speaker 2: The producer's cast and crew to express their gratitude to

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Speaker 2: engineering student William Hung for showing up and shaking his

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Speaker 2: bonbon William, Yes.

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Speaker 4: Talk to me, tell me your name. You blow me off.

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Speaker 10: Like it's all the same you, lady person, I'm taking

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Speaker 10: away like your bomb.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, babe bee. She begs, she begs, Oh baby, she moves.

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Speaker 1: She moves, William Hung. Your sixteenth minute starts now. Welcome

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Speaker 1: to sixteenth Minute, the podcast where we take a look

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Speaker 1: at the Internet's main characters and learn how their moment

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Speaker 1: affected them and what it says about us and the Internet.

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Speaker 1: And this week we're talking about someone I consider to

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Speaker 1: be the patron saints of main characters, William Hung and

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Speaker 1: just a headsap. This is going to be a two

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Speaker 1: part episode because there is a lot going on in

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Speaker 1: this story. Not only does it take place at a

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Speaker 1: time where the Internet was still catching on in terms

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Speaker 1: of being a part of shaping our minds and television,

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Speaker 1: but it happened over two decas gades ago and intersects

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Speaker 1: with how turn of the century reality TV framed people.

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Speaker 1: Particularly in this case Asian Americans and immigrants. The she

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Speaker 1: Bangs moment lives on in infamy, but I want to

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Speaker 1: take special attention towards that issue, specifically in the second

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Speaker 1: part of this episode, to examine where it fell in

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Speaker 1: the history of cruelty and antipathy towards Asian men in

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Speaker 1: Western media. But for all intents and purposes, the subject

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Speaker 1: of this story, William Hung himself, rejects a lot of

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Speaker 1: the popular narratives around his legacy. So for part one

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Speaker 1: of this episode, I'm going to tell you the story

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Speaker 1: of William Hung as it rolled out in real time,

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Speaker 1: and then we'll chat and in next week in part two,

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Speaker 1: we'll take a look at some of these narratives, ones

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Speaker 1: that intersect with anti Asian racism and how American reality

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Speaker 1: TV can be uniquely debaucherous. And this story is a

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Speaker 1: real throwback. So buckle in and come with me if

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Speaker 1: you dare to two thousand and four. Ooh, this year

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Speaker 1: was formative for me. George W. Bush became president again

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Speaker 1: and didn't even need to lie about it this time.

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Speaker 1: A movie I consider critical to my personality Joel Schumacher's

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Speaker 1: Phantom of the Opera starring Gerard Butler as the phantom

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Speaker 1: in the actual worst vocal Performance of two thousand and

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Speaker 1: four comes out.

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Speaker 10: Stood two.

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Speaker 1: And William Hung becomes the most famous American Idol contestant

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Speaker 1: of all time for a quote unquote bad audition at

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Speaker 1: the beginning of the summer, just as school was getting out,

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Speaker 1: and our relationship to the Internet was very particular at

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Speaker 1: this time. To set the scene, this is a year

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Speaker 1: where MySpace was the most popular social media site. It

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Speaker 1: was the year that Facebook launched in a strange Zuckerbergian

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Speaker 1: horny experiment. It was before YouTube even existed. Blogs and

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Speaker 1: message boards are the norm. Blogger and Friendster and Mozilla,

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Speaker 1: Firefox and Confessions by Usher are playing at a dance.

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Speaker 1: The top shows around Idle on TV where CSI lost,

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Speaker 1: Desperate Housewives Survivor, and Everybody Loves Raymond, and Reality TV

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Speaker 1: specifically was having a huge moment. What constitutes reality TV

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Speaker 1: is pretty nebulous, but it has been around in some

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Speaker 1: form since TV has existed, beginning with candid Camera coming

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Speaker 1: from radio to TV in the late nineteen forties, then

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Speaker 1: giving way to early dating shows like The Dating Game.

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Speaker 1: In the sixties, televised talent shows became more popular in

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Speaker 1: the eighties, with That's Incredible debuting on ABC in the

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Speaker 1: eighties and Cops, the most sinister reality show of all time,

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Speaker 1: starting up in nineteen eighty nine. But I think most

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Speaker 1: people consider the start of contemporary reality shows with MTV's

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Speaker 1: The Real World in nineteen ninety two. Then in the

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Speaker 1: late nineties into the early two thousands, the debaucherous contest

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Speaker 1: based shows began to take off. Survivors started in two thousand,

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Speaker 1: then Big Brother, then Fear Factor and on and on.

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Speaker 1: The Bachelor premiered less than three months before American Idol,

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Speaker 1: and this was just in the US. Again. Idyl was

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Speaker 1: a direct ripoff of two different international talent shows, and

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Speaker 1: it kind of scratched the itch of a wide range

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Speaker 1: of genres. It had the exploitative, luring character study of

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Speaker 1: everyday people as in Survivor, while also having the pop

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Speaker 1: of an old school star search setup. And yes, while

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Speaker 1: it took Idle creator Simon Fuller a little bit of

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Speaker 1: pixie dust to sell Fox on the value of the show,

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Speaker 1: it wasn't a shock that it did well. It was

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Speaker 1: literally cooked in a lab to do well. Here's some

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Speaker 1: initial reception of the show in the New York Daily News.

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Speaker 1: Two days after the.

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Speaker 11: Premiere, Fox's music talent search series American Idol is looking

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Speaker 11: like the first new hit of the summer. American Idol

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Speaker 11: also demonstrates the unpredictability of summer reality shows. Several weeks ago,

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Speaker 11: Fox introduced Looking for Love Bachelorettes in Alaska, in which

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Speaker 11: five women will select a husband from fifty eligible men,

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Speaker 11: but audiences haven't bothered to watch.

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Speaker 1: And not for nothing. I would have watched that shit pronto,

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Speaker 1: put it in a syringe for Jamie. But you get

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Speaker 1: the idea. American Idol blew up at a time where

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Speaker 1: reality TV was just becoming a fixture of American life.

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Speaker 1: But how do we get from here? To William Hung

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Speaker 1: nearly two years after the show's debut. Well, here's what

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Speaker 1: you need to know about William, and I'll let him

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Speaker 1: expand in our interview. William was born in Hong Kong

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Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty two and then moved to the La

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Speaker 1: area Van Nis to my local heads with his family

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Speaker 1: when he was eleven. This is where he spent his

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Speaker 1: adolescence and he enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley

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Speaker 1: to study civil engineering. And it's here in the early

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Speaker 1: two thousands, that William learns that American Idol is holding

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Speaker 1: auditions in nearby San Francisco in September two thousand and three,

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Speaker 1: when he's twenty years old. I'll let him tell the

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Speaker 1: story of auditioning in more detail, but it boils down

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Speaker 1: to this. William had a good sense of humor about himself.

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Speaker 1: He enjoyed pop music, and he was familiar with American

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Speaker 1: Idol because everyone was. And so he auditions. He gets

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Speaker 1: through the general round, he gets through the producer, and

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Speaker 1: he keeps on getting through until he's told on the

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Speaker 1: second day of auditioning that he will be presented to

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Speaker 1: Randy Simon and Paula themselves. The gods have agreed to

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Speaker 1: meet with him, but before we get to the audition itself.

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Speaker 1: A lot of people I spoke to about this episode

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Speaker 1: were kind of surprised at how early William Hung became

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Speaker 1: a sensation in American Idol's run, and I can't help

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Speaker 1: but agree. There are only a few other contestants who

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Speaker 1: I remembered, but no one like William. In fact, the

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Speaker 1: only other two contestants I remembered clearly as having bad

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Speaker 1: auditions were from two thousand and eight. In twenty ten,

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Speaker 1: first pants on the ground.

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Speaker 4: Pants on a prayer, pants on a prayer, looking like

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Speaker 4: a fool with your pants on.

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Speaker 1: The prayer, and especially no sex allowed.

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Speaker 12: So I promise her love as she springs along cor

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Speaker 12: set This week, I love it straw, no sex loud.

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Speaker 10: I don't want to be part of your crowd.

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Speaker 1: And you can see from these examples alone, neither of

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Speaker 1: these guys are good singers. But that's not exactly the point,

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Speaker 1: is it. There's plenty of bad singers that audition for shows.

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Speaker 1: These people are good TV and lean into, in some

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Speaker 1: cases religious and racialized tropes that Americans would be familiar with,

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Speaker 1: and do not challenge them whatsoever. But that's not because

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Speaker 1: the contestants embody these fictional tropes. It's because that's how

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Speaker 1: they're framed. And it's here that I want to take

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Speaker 1: you on a divergent journey, a tale of two auditions,

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Speaker 1: if you will, because when William Hung's audition airs, he

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Speaker 1: becomes an overnight star, one of the earliest people to

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Speaker 1: straddle the worlds of traditional media and word of mouth

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Speaker 1: and the power of the Internet. And this reaction and

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Speaker 1: legacy has a lot to do with William himself, but

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Speaker 1: also has to do with how we're conditioned to see

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Speaker 1: him based on how the show frames him. So here

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Speaker 1: is past one, the aired audition. We're gonna fast forward

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Speaker 1: to singing because you know what it sounds like.

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Speaker 10: But we have found the next key. My name is Ryan.

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Speaker 4: Oh, nice to me too, Nice to see you, buddy.

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Speaker 10: Let me tell you what I'm gonna sing. I'm thinking

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Speaker 10: Ricky Martin. She bangs, bangs.

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Speaker 4: Yes, it's a good song.

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Speaker 10: So but so it's either I really do well by

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Speaker 10: lighting up the stage right, or I don't.

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Speaker 2: The producers, cast and crew would like to express their

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Speaker 2: gratitude to engineering student William Hung for showing up and

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Speaker 2: shaking his bond.

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Speaker 6: Bond.

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Speaker 4: Yes, talk to me, tell me your name. You've blow

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Speaker 4: me off like it's all the same and wasted by

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Speaker 4: the way.

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Speaker 9: You can't sing, you can't dance, So what do you

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Speaker 9: wanted to say?

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Speaker 10: Hey, you know I have no professional training of singing.

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Speaker 4: No, we didn't believe it either.

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Speaker 1: No, this surprise of the century, This whole segment is

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Speaker 1: a little over a minute. We meet William, we learn

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Speaker 1: he's an engineering student, and we see him bomb. Paula

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Speaker 1: does an awkward, encouraging dance, and Randy covers his face

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Speaker 1: with a napkin to hide the fact that he's laughing.

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Speaker 1: Behind William the faces of Ruben Stuttard and Kelly Clarkson

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Speaker 1: loom and if you've seen the audition, and I know

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Speaker 1: you have, William is dancing kind of awkwardly along with

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Speaker 1: the music before he stopped by Simon and then he

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Speaker 1: is summarily rejected by the Gods. And that's the clip.

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Speaker 1: But that's a lot to happen in the space of

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Speaker 1: a minute, and it speaks to the economical way that

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Speaker 1: American Idol editors and producers condensed ten thousand auditions into

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Speaker 1: a single episode of television to get a public reaction.

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Speaker 1: And boy was there a public reaction. But before we

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Speaker 1: get there and forge ahead into William's career, I want

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Speaker 1: to bring you to that second path the one where

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Speaker 1: Williams audition wasn't compressed in the seventy seconds and gives

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Speaker 1: far more insight into why William has come to audition

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Speaker 1: in the first place. So here's pathway too, a segment

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Speaker 1: from the five minute cut of William's audition.

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Speaker 10: I grew up in Los Angeles, California. I was originally

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Speaker 10: born from Hong Kong. So I've been here the United

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Speaker 10: States for ten years and I was currently studying at

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Speaker 10: UC Berkeley right now. It's kind of odd, like why

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Speaker 10: I chose to even audition the first place, because my

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Speaker 10: major is simple engineering. This is not totally not related

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Speaker 10: to music, but I really like music. I want to

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Speaker 10: make music my living.

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Speaker 1: He expands a little more in the preamble with the.

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Speaker 9: Judges, William, why are you here?

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Speaker 10: I'm here to sing to America, to sing of America? Okay,

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Speaker 10: all right, I'm here for for the Trinity to sing

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Speaker 10: to America.

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Speaker 1: Because you think you could be the.

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Speaker 4: Next American idol.

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Speaker 10: Absolutely, because I'm singing from my heart. I might not

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Speaker 10: be the best singer around the world, but I know

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Speaker 10: that I'm singing from my heart, and I put every

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Speaker 10: bit of energy into it.

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Speaker 9: Really.

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Speaker 10: Yes, what's name?

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Speaker 4: H U n G?

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Speaker 1: Yes? Do you have brothers and sisters?

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Speaker 3: No?

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Speaker 10: I don't. I'm the only child, the only child. Yes.

436
00:28:33,640 --> 00:28:35,399
Speaker 10: Do your parents tell you you have a great voice?

437
00:28:36,960 --> 00:28:37,959
Speaker 4: No, they don't realize.

438
00:28:38,080 --> 00:28:39,400
Speaker 1: Actually they don't realize it.

439
00:28:39,680 --> 00:28:42,800
Speaker 10: No. No, because my when I was young, my parents

440
00:28:43,320 --> 00:28:45,760
Speaker 10: like to sing karaoke. I was there with them and

441
00:28:45,920 --> 00:28:47,880
Speaker 10: sing with them as as a hobby.

442
00:28:48,120 --> 00:28:50,720
Speaker 1: And what do they do when you sing with them?

443
00:28:50,800 --> 00:28:51,640
Speaker 10: What do I do?

444
00:28:51,440 --> 00:28:52,239
Speaker 1: What did they do?

445
00:28:52,280 --> 00:28:52,880
Speaker 4: What did they do?

446
00:28:53,000 --> 00:28:56,160
Speaker 10: Why I sing with them? They thought I'm okay, they die,

447
00:28:56,240 --> 00:28:57,800
Speaker 10: They thought I have I have some I have a

448
00:28:57,880 --> 00:29:00,320
Speaker 10: chance of, you know, making it to the next level.

449
00:29:00,680 --> 00:29:03,240
Speaker 1: And again there's a lot more information you get here.

450
00:29:03,720 --> 00:29:07,280
Speaker 1: He acknowledges he's not the best singer. And look, why

451
00:29:07,360 --> 00:29:10,040
Speaker 1: is he here if he knows that? The age old

452
00:29:10,160 --> 00:29:13,440
Speaker 1: question of reality TV returns and you get more from

453
00:29:13,480 --> 00:29:17,440
Speaker 1: the judges when William finishes, and Simon Cowell really turns

454
00:29:17,440 --> 00:29:18,760
Speaker 1: the knife as you might.

455
00:29:18,640 --> 00:29:21,880
Speaker 8: Expect, William, it's one of actually the worst auditions we've

456
00:29:21,880 --> 00:29:26,120
Speaker 8: had this year, if I'm being honest, seriously, I mean

457
00:29:26,160 --> 00:29:27,760
Speaker 8: everything about it was grotesque.

458
00:29:28,200 --> 00:29:32,320
Speaker 10: Oh stop it grotesque. It was stop it.

459
00:29:34,480 --> 00:29:36,680
Speaker 9: You can't sing, you can't dance. So what do you

460
00:29:36,800 --> 00:29:37,600
Speaker 9: What do you want me to say?

461
00:29:39,200 --> 00:29:41,720
Speaker 10: I already gave my best and I have no regrets

462
00:29:41,720 --> 00:29:42,040
Speaker 10: at all.

463
00:29:42,280 --> 00:29:43,360
Speaker 9: Good for you, that's good.

464
00:29:43,680 --> 00:29:44,800
Speaker 10: That's good. That's good.

465
00:29:44,920 --> 00:29:50,280
Speaker 1: That's the best attitude. Yeah, all right, soy, yes or no? No, William,

466
00:29:50,320 --> 00:29:52,360
Speaker 1: you know you're not good enough for this dude, But

467
00:29:52,400 --> 00:29:53,920
Speaker 1: at least you came here, you had a good time,

468
00:29:54,000 --> 00:29:54,920
Speaker 1: You had fun, right.

469
00:29:54,920 --> 00:29:56,280
Speaker 10: Yes, did you think?

470
00:29:56,640 --> 00:29:59,080
Speaker 1: And we had fun watching it? Okay, thank you so

471
00:29:59,160 --> 00:30:00,000
Speaker 1: much for coming down.

472
00:30:00,360 --> 00:30:01,680
Speaker 9: William, go and do some homework.

473
00:30:02,280 --> 00:30:05,560
Speaker 1: Ultimately, I think this longer cut makes the judges seem

474
00:30:05,800 --> 00:30:11,800
Speaker 1: even crueler. Cowl's saying grotesque about William in particular, something

475
00:30:11,800 --> 00:30:15,520
Speaker 1: that Randy and Paula to people with more humanity who

476
00:30:15,600 --> 00:30:19,360
Speaker 1: happen to be people of color, immediately protest to. And

477
00:30:19,600 --> 00:30:22,800
Speaker 1: this clip further asked the question of how William feels

478
00:30:22,840 --> 00:30:26,080
Speaker 1: about his own ability. In one breath, he says he

479
00:30:26,200 --> 00:30:28,600
Speaker 1: knows he isn't great, and the next he says he

480
00:30:28,640 --> 00:30:30,680
Speaker 1: knows he can make a living as a singer and

481
00:30:30,720 --> 00:30:33,200
Speaker 1: it's his dream. But it's this moment.

482
00:30:33,760 --> 00:30:36,320
Speaker 9: You can't sing, you can't dance, So what do you

483
00:30:36,400 --> 00:30:36,880
Speaker 9: mean to say?

484
00:30:38,480 --> 00:30:41,040
Speaker 10: I already gave my best and I have no regrets

485
00:30:41,040 --> 00:30:41,400
Speaker 10: at all.

486
00:30:41,960 --> 00:30:45,560
Speaker 1: That I feel sums William up the best no matter

487
00:30:45,600 --> 00:30:49,600
Speaker 1: what others say, he has no regrets. Contrast this with

488
00:30:49,840 --> 00:30:52,200
Speaker 1: how this is presented in the first broadcast.

489
00:30:52,800 --> 00:30:55,080
Speaker 9: You can't sing, you can't dance, so what do you

490
00:30:55,120 --> 00:30:55,600
Speaker 9: mean to say?

491
00:30:56,280 --> 00:30:58,840
Speaker 10: And you know I have no professional training of singing.

492
00:30:59,000 --> 00:30:59,200
Speaker 4: No.

493
00:31:00,040 --> 00:31:04,320
Speaker 1: An unrelated response from William is spliced in in no

494
00:31:04,440 --> 00:31:08,240
Speaker 1: small part, I think, to make him seem more delusional,

495
00:31:09,000 --> 00:31:11,440
Speaker 1: like he thinks they were so blown away by his

496
00:31:11,560 --> 00:31:14,480
Speaker 1: performance that they would be impressed by his lack of

497
00:31:14,520 --> 00:31:19,200
Speaker 1: training and while awkward, this is how that response actually

498
00:31:19,240 --> 00:31:20,640
Speaker 1: comes up in the full clip.

499
00:31:21,440 --> 00:31:24,000
Speaker 4: No, William, you know you're not good enough for this, dude,

500
00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:24,920
Speaker 4: but at least you came here.

501
00:31:24,960 --> 00:31:25,680
Speaker 6: You had a good time.

502
00:31:25,720 --> 00:31:28,520
Speaker 10: You had fun, right, Yes, and.

503
00:31:28,480 --> 00:31:29,480
Speaker 1: We had fun watching you.

504
00:31:29,840 --> 00:31:31,760
Speaker 10: Okay, thank you so much for coming down.

505
00:31:32,880 --> 00:31:34,280
Speaker 9: No, we didn't go and do some homework.

506
00:31:34,960 --> 00:31:38,200
Speaker 1: Okay, you won't tell your parents that you missed today

507
00:31:38,280 --> 00:31:38,680
Speaker 1: to school.

508
00:31:38,880 --> 00:31:42,840
Speaker 10: Yeah, no, you know I have no professional training of singing. No.

509
00:31:42,920 --> 00:31:47,480
Speaker 1: So the context is actually quite different. He's speaking more

510
00:31:47,520 --> 00:31:52,280
Speaker 1: defensively after being roundly rejected, almost offering an explanation for

511
00:31:52,320 --> 00:31:55,440
Speaker 1: the performance, instead of the edit we see where he's

512
00:31:55,480 --> 00:31:59,400
Speaker 1: positioned as being almost arrogant about it. This is the

513
00:31:59,480 --> 00:32:03,720
Speaker 1: nature of reality TV, and it's prompted endless discussion since

514
00:32:03,720 --> 00:32:06,920
Speaker 1: the early two thousands. Today, I think it's far more

515
00:32:06,960 --> 00:32:10,480
Speaker 1: normal to assume what you're watching on reality TV isn't

516
00:32:10,520 --> 00:32:14,080
Speaker 1: real than is but in the early two thousands, that

517
00:32:14,200 --> 00:32:18,200
Speaker 1: built in skepticism wasn't fully formed, and it wasn't unusual

518
00:32:18,240 --> 00:32:21,360
Speaker 1: to take things like that at face value. These days

519
00:32:21,360 --> 00:32:24,960
Speaker 1: you have examples like Love Is Blind contestants suing their

520
00:32:25,000 --> 00:32:28,560
Speaker 1: network for applying them with alcohol and misrepresenting them in

521
00:32:28,600 --> 00:32:32,760
Speaker 1: the edit while paying them very little. But honestly, if

522
00:32:32,800 --> 00:32:36,760
Speaker 1: you made those same complaints twenty years ago, the understanding

523
00:32:36,800 --> 00:32:39,920
Speaker 1: of how these shows were built and profited from wasn't

524
00:32:39,960 --> 00:32:44,160
Speaker 1: really well understood enough to build meaningful empathy for any

525
00:32:44,240 --> 00:32:48,520
Speaker 1: of their participants. And so William is presented to the

526
00:32:48,520 --> 00:32:51,680
Speaker 1: world as this William pathway.

527
00:32:51,680 --> 00:32:54,920
Speaker 2: One the producers, cast and crew would like to express

528
00:32:54,960 --> 00:32:58,840
Speaker 2: their gratitude to engineering student William Hung for showing up

529
00:32:58,920 --> 00:33:01,040
Speaker 2: and shaking his bund And it's.

530
00:33:00,960 --> 00:33:04,640
Speaker 1: This version of William that first becomes a viral sensation,

531
00:33:05,480 --> 00:33:09,680
Speaker 1: but not necessarily overnight. It takes mainstream media outlets a

532
00:33:09,680 --> 00:33:12,680
Speaker 1: few days before they start to jump onto the William train,

533
00:33:13,280 --> 00:33:23,240
Speaker 1: but once it starts, it's unstoppable. The Asian boy came in,

534
00:33:23,320 --> 00:33:26,640
Speaker 1: of course, he goes by William, Hong Abdul says, beginning

535
00:33:26,640 --> 00:33:28,160
Speaker 1: to giggle like a kid. On the first day of

536
00:33:28,240 --> 00:33:31,240
Speaker 1: gym class. On his list were two songs, and he said,

537
00:33:31,480 --> 00:33:34,280
Speaker 1: A'll sing God Bless America and the second song was

538
00:33:34,280 --> 00:33:39,680
Speaker 1: she Bangs. What a remarkable American Idol discovery in a nutshell.

539
00:33:39,840 --> 00:33:42,280
Speaker 1: If you turn Clay ache and inside out, you would

540
00:33:42,280 --> 00:33:43,640
Speaker 1: discover William.

541
00:33:44,080 --> 00:33:48,400
Speaker 11: American Idol executive producer Nigel Lithgow admits that they are

542
00:33:48,480 --> 00:33:51,760
Speaker 11: anxious to get the Bay Area belter back for a

543
00:33:51,920 --> 00:33:57,760
Speaker 11: mid series special tentatively titled Uncut, Uncensored, and Untalented.

544
00:34:01,000 --> 00:34:05,840
Speaker 1: Yes, William became a sensation to his bafflement because he'd

545
00:34:05,840 --> 00:34:09,879
Speaker 1: auditioned four months earlier and had no indication of how

546
00:34:09,920 --> 00:34:12,799
Speaker 1: his segment had been edited. And if you don't know,

547
00:34:13,080 --> 00:34:16,319
Speaker 1: that's just kind of how reality TV works to this

548
00:34:16,440 --> 00:34:20,040
Speaker 1: day unless you're a cast member who's also a credited

549
00:34:20,120 --> 00:34:24,800
Speaker 1: producer or otherwise involved in the production. So William confirmed

550
00:34:24,800 --> 00:34:28,040
Speaker 1: to me that when he auditioned, he signed a release

551
00:34:28,120 --> 00:34:32,000
Speaker 1: form that basically meant he had no control over how much,

552
00:34:32,320 --> 00:34:35,040
Speaker 1: or if any of his audition would appear in the

553
00:34:35,040 --> 00:34:38,360
Speaker 1: final cut. He's signing over the footage of his likeness

554
00:34:38,800 --> 00:34:43,200
Speaker 1: and effectively all authorial control of how we meet him.

555
00:34:43,560 --> 00:34:46,400
Speaker 1: But this story didn't move at the speed most stories

556
00:34:46,480 --> 00:34:50,480
Speaker 1: due today. William takes a little while to start meaningfully

557
00:34:50,520 --> 00:34:54,040
Speaker 1: engaging with the sensation, and I think if it happened now,

558
00:34:54,320 --> 00:34:57,839
Speaker 1: the ship might have already sailed. But media in two

559
00:34:57,880 --> 00:35:02,320
Speaker 1: thousand and four moved a little slower. There were waves

560
00:35:02,440 --> 00:35:06,400
Speaker 1: in which William became more popular, giving American idol producers

561
00:35:06,480 --> 00:35:09,600
Speaker 1: time to respond to and gauge what to do with

562
00:35:09,680 --> 00:35:15,560
Speaker 1: his popularity. Producer Nigel Lithgow commented in something called zap

563
00:35:15,640 --> 00:35:20,200
Speaker 1: Tuit News in mid February, nearly a month after William's

564
00:35:20,200 --> 00:35:21,000
Speaker 1: audition aired.

565
00:35:21,600 --> 00:35:23,799
Speaker 11: I don't know what the future holds. He's going to

566
00:35:23,800 --> 00:35:25,400
Speaker 11: be cold to do things, and if he's happy to

567
00:35:25,440 --> 00:35:29,480
Speaker 11: do them, that's great. He shouldn't give up Berkeley. Obviously,

568
00:35:29,560 --> 00:35:33,439
Speaker 11: he's an extremely intelligent guy and realizes that this could

569
00:35:33,480 --> 00:35:34,800
Speaker 11: be his five minutes of fame.

570
00:35:35,680 --> 00:35:36,080
Speaker 5: Mm hmm.

571
00:35:36,760 --> 00:35:42,480
Speaker 1: Potent phrase, salient phrase. In the immediate aftermath of the

572
00:35:42,520 --> 00:35:46,320
Speaker 1: She Bangs audition, there was buzz in the news and online.

573
00:35:46,800 --> 00:35:49,399
Speaker 1: But part of the reason we're still talking about him

574
00:35:49,440 --> 00:35:54,200
Speaker 1: now is because Hung eventually became amenable to all this attention.

575
00:35:55,360 --> 00:35:58,320
Speaker 1: This appears to have happened sometime in the first month

576
00:35:58,480 --> 00:36:02,800
Speaker 1: after the audition aired because Hung was rejecting appearance requests

577
00:36:02,800 --> 00:36:05,719
Speaker 1: at first. At the end of February, Hung turned down

578
00:36:05,760 --> 00:36:08,120
Speaker 1: a chance to headline the halftime show of a pro

579
00:36:08,239 --> 00:36:11,480
Speaker 1: lacrosse team in Philadelphia, citing the need to focus on

580
00:36:11,520 --> 00:36:14,920
Speaker 1: his studies as the reason he was doing the occasional

581
00:36:14,960 --> 00:36:18,399
Speaker 1: interview in the first month, but certainly not dropping his

582
00:36:18,440 --> 00:36:23,080
Speaker 1: life entirely from an entertainment to night piece. From February tenth.

583
00:36:23,400 --> 00:36:27,279
Speaker 11: I wasn't expecting this media exposure. I think it's a

584
00:36:27,280 --> 00:36:31,759
Speaker 11: bit overwhelming. It's also a little bit surprising because I

585
00:36:31,800 --> 00:36:36,319
Speaker 11: didn't expect this overwhelming fan base. I don't know. I'm

586
00:36:36,360 --> 00:36:39,920
Speaker 11: really not sure about this, but it seems positive.

587
00:36:40,400 --> 00:36:43,440
Speaker 1: As William talks about in our interview, the amount of

588
00:36:43,520 --> 00:36:47,480
Speaker 1: protracted attention he was receiving, the King difficult to resist,

589
00:36:48,040 --> 00:36:51,920
Speaker 1: and not strictly because of attention either. There was money

590
00:36:52,000 --> 00:36:55,840
Speaker 1: in this and people weren't growing less interested in him.

591
00:36:56,120 --> 00:36:59,920
Speaker 1: But again, this fervent kind of attention cuts a number

592
00:37:00,040 --> 00:37:03,640
Speaker 1: of different ways, because it's in response to a fundamentally

593
00:37:03,680 --> 00:37:08,400
Speaker 1: dishonest version of how William first responded during that audition,

594
00:37:09,320 --> 00:37:13,720
Speaker 1: and in a truly archaic Internet landscape, early fan sites

595
00:37:13,760 --> 00:37:18,759
Speaker 1: for him started to emerge, both genuine and ironic. But

596
00:37:18,800 --> 00:37:21,840
Speaker 1: before we look at those, can I just say, combing

597
00:37:21,880 --> 00:37:26,480
Speaker 1: through early two thousands fan sites nearly induced in epileptic

598
00:37:26,600 --> 00:37:33,359
Speaker 1: attack in me so much neon, so many flashing gifts,

599
00:37:33,440 --> 00:37:38,719
Speaker 1: just a complete misunderstanding of proper line spacing and fonts awful.

600
00:37:39,280 --> 00:37:43,720
Speaker 1: You're welcome because, make no mistake, there was a vital

601
00:37:43,800 --> 00:37:48,080
Speaker 1: Internet community around William, one that became impossible for both

602
00:37:48,200 --> 00:37:52,440
Speaker 1: him and American Idol to ignore. On the earnest side,

603
00:37:52,640 --> 00:37:55,760
Speaker 1: there was Billy hung dot com, a site that aimed

604
00:37:55,760 --> 00:37:58,360
Speaker 1: to raise money to help William record an album.

605
00:37:58,880 --> 00:38:04,000
Speaker 11: They said, while William may not have the raw talent

606
00:38:04,280 --> 00:38:07,600
Speaker 11: that the judges were looking for, America sees something different.

607
00:38:08,040 --> 00:38:12,080
Speaker 11: William Hung, in some small way, represents each of us

608
00:38:12,360 --> 00:38:16,160
Speaker 11: and how we strive to reach our dreams, ignoring all

609
00:38:16,360 --> 00:38:21,280
Speaker 11: the naysayers on the way. If William succeeds in reaching

610
00:38:21,280 --> 00:38:24,440
Speaker 11: his dream this will teach all of us that we

611
00:38:24,640 --> 00:38:28,320
Speaker 11: can reach any potential we set our mind to reach.

612
00:38:29,120 --> 00:38:31,759
Speaker 11: If he doesn't achieve his goals, perhaps it is America

613
00:38:32,160 --> 00:38:34,080
Speaker 11: and not William that has failed.

614
00:38:34,800 --> 00:38:37,840
Speaker 1: And on the other side, be mocking sites with the

615
00:38:37,920 --> 00:38:43,600
Speaker 1: same terrible blinking lights, most notably save William Hung dot com.

616
00:38:44,120 --> 00:38:48,520
Speaker 11: They say this, We asked him to put down the

617
00:38:48,560 --> 00:38:51,479
Speaker 11: microphone and step away from the stage, but William Hung

618
00:38:51,719 --> 00:38:55,920
Speaker 11: wouldn't listen. When the music stops, Will is going to

619
00:38:55,960 --> 00:38:59,920
Speaker 11: wake up to a cruel reality. People haven't been laughing

620
00:39:00,080 --> 00:39:04,240
Speaker 11: with him. They've been laughing at him. Will's wild ride

621
00:39:04,560 --> 00:39:07,839
Speaker 11: is going to come to a very lonely end by

622
00:39:07,840 --> 00:39:12,000
Speaker 11: the end of the year. You'll probably laugh. Then, feeling guilty,

623
00:39:12,040 --> 00:39:15,759
Speaker 11: you'll say, oh, well, we believe Will is going to

624
00:39:15,800 --> 00:39:21,760
Speaker 11: need some serious psychological counseling, so we are collecting donations.

625
00:39:22,719 --> 00:39:26,399
Speaker 1: This was matched with increasing mainstream attention, which I will

626
00:39:26,400 --> 00:39:30,160
Speaker 1: summarize through this god awful Jimmy fallon impression on snl

627
00:39:30,840 --> 00:39:33,879
Speaker 1: uh trigger warning for everything.

628
00:39:34,880 --> 00:39:37,200
Speaker 4: Let me just say I have no professional training in us.

629
00:39:38,840 --> 00:39:42,160
Speaker 1: Talk to me, tell me your name, you call me

630
00:39:42,239 --> 00:39:48,440
Speaker 1: up like it's on the same uh huh uh huh.

631
00:39:48,560 --> 00:39:51,440
Speaker 1: But the main website that launched him as an online

632
00:39:51,480 --> 00:39:56,080
Speaker 1: personality was done by a couple named Don and Laura Chin,

633
00:39:56,680 --> 00:40:00,480
Speaker 1: and their site, William Hung dot net, got over four

634
00:40:00,520 --> 00:40:03,920
Speaker 1: million hits the first week of its launch. Add that

635
00:40:04,000 --> 00:40:07,440
Speaker 1: to an online petition with one hundred thousand signatures to

636
00:40:07,719 --> 00:40:11,000
Speaker 1: send Hung to Hollywood in late February two thousand and four,

637
00:40:11,520 --> 00:40:15,680
Speaker 1: over a month after his appearance, and neither Idle nor

638
00:40:15,800 --> 00:40:20,240
Speaker 1: Hung could ignore it any longer. They wanted him back.

639
00:40:21,200 --> 00:40:25,440
Speaker 1: And remember that audition special Nigel Lithgow mentioned earlier. They

640
00:40:25,440 --> 00:40:28,759
Speaker 1: did that in early March two thousand and four. But

641
00:40:28,960 --> 00:40:38,120
Speaker 1: unlike the season one audition special, these auditions were all bad, uncut, uncensored, untalented.

642
00:40:39,880 --> 00:40:43,759
Speaker 6: They braved the auditions, They braved the provoke critiques of

643
00:40:43,800 --> 00:40:48,880
Speaker 6: the judges Tonight, you brave their performances live in person.

644
00:40:49,680 --> 00:40:51,880
Speaker 6: Was the panel wrong to keep them in the dark?

645
00:40:52,320 --> 00:40:58,120
Speaker 6: Or do they belong on this stage? Uncut, uncensored, but untalented?

646
00:40:58,680 --> 00:41:01,759
Speaker 6: You watch, you decide.

647
00:41:03,160 --> 00:41:06,959
Speaker 1: It's wild. The opening of the special pans across people

648
00:41:07,000 --> 00:41:10,000
Speaker 1: who did poorly in the auditions and brings them back

649
00:41:10,080 --> 00:41:13,920
Speaker 1: for an hour of prime time entertainment hosted by Ryan

650
00:41:13,960 --> 00:41:17,240
Speaker 1: Seacrest wearing a suit jacket with a T shirt and jeans.

651
00:41:17,320 --> 00:41:21,280
Speaker 1: Come on, and William, of course, is the best saved

652
00:41:21,360 --> 00:41:22,800
Speaker 1: for last on this show.

653
00:41:23,719 --> 00:41:29,000
Speaker 3: William the Guy's gotten over seven million hits on his

654
00:41:29,040 --> 00:41:31,040
Speaker 3: fan website.

655
00:41:32,400 --> 00:41:36,680
Speaker 6: Once an anonymous face in a crowded holding room. This

656
00:41:36,840 --> 00:41:42,319
Speaker 6: man's life has changed beyond compare. Once he walked the

657
00:41:42,320 --> 00:41:47,120
Speaker 6: campus of Berkeley alone, Now he needs a police escorts

658
00:41:47,160 --> 00:41:50,960
Speaker 6: to make a chew with civil engineering classes. Once merely

659
00:41:50,960 --> 00:41:55,160
Speaker 6: a number, his name is now legended across the country.

660
00:41:55,600 --> 00:41:59,439
Speaker 6: Even Jimmy Fallon paid homage to William on Saturday Night Live.

661
00:42:00,400 --> 00:42:03,320
Speaker 6: He's the latest American sixteen sensations.

662
00:42:03,719 --> 00:42:08,520
Speaker 10: I get recognized everywhere. It's kind of difficult to get

663
00:42:08,560 --> 00:42:09,840
Speaker 10: around without getting recognized.

664
00:42:09,880 --> 00:42:13,360
Speaker 6: I guess his banging puts even Ricky Martin to shame.

665
00:42:14,200 --> 00:42:20,360
Speaker 1: He is hung, and as you can hear, the Internet

666
00:42:20,480 --> 00:42:23,320
Speaker 1: is cited as a big reason he's held on to

667
00:42:23,440 --> 00:42:27,960
Speaker 1: all this attention. William is a celebrity who straddles time

668
00:42:28,160 --> 00:42:32,120
Speaker 1: and technology. He's really only getting his dues six weeks

669
00:42:32,160 --> 00:42:35,600
Speaker 1: after he first appeared, But the Internet is a crucial

670
00:42:35,640 --> 00:42:39,560
Speaker 1: part of this success. But it's still framed as kind

671
00:42:39,560 --> 00:42:40,040
Speaker 1: of a joke.

672
00:42:40,880 --> 00:42:45,120
Speaker 3: You see you, h Wow, your life is completely changed.

673
00:42:45,200 --> 00:42:45,839
Speaker 4: Huh.

674
00:42:45,880 --> 00:42:49,239
Speaker 10: I can't believe it. Yeah, neither can we.

675
00:42:51,920 --> 00:42:55,320
Speaker 1: So it's pretty indisputable that William Hung is the reason

676
00:42:55,480 --> 00:42:58,640
Speaker 1: that this special happened at all. And if there's any

677
00:42:58,719 --> 00:43:02,640
Speaker 1: clearer indication of how famous he was becoming. It was

678
00:43:02,719 --> 00:43:06,640
Speaker 1: rumored that a clay Achin special was postponed to make

679
00:43:06,719 --> 00:43:12,120
Speaker 1: room for uncut, uncensored, untalented. Being famously bad could be

680
00:43:12,320 --> 00:43:16,280
Speaker 1: more profitable than being famously good. But I love clay

681
00:43:16,280 --> 00:43:19,440
Speaker 1: Achin Invisibles my go to karaoke show, and it hasn't

682
00:43:19,480 --> 00:43:26,120
Speaker 1: brought the house down once. Things had changed for William

683
00:43:26,239 --> 00:43:29,759
Speaker 1: at this point. I love I heard that you were

684
00:43:29,800 --> 00:43:31,320
Speaker 1: offered a record bill. Is it true?

685
00:43:31,560 --> 00:43:31,759
Speaker 10: Yes?

686
00:43:31,760 --> 00:43:32,080
Speaker 12: It is?

687
00:43:32,360 --> 00:43:33,960
Speaker 1: Oh, and what did you decide to do?

688
00:43:34,040 --> 00:43:38,560
Speaker 10: Did you take that? I'm still looking over the small details. Oh, yes,

689
00:43:39,080 --> 00:43:41,799
Speaker 10: So what you have an agent? Now I have I'm

690
00:43:42,040 --> 00:43:47,239
Speaker 10: getting somebody to walk on it. My dad again? Agents. Oh,

691
00:43:47,520 --> 00:43:48,759
Speaker 10: I mean I'm trying to walk on it.

692
00:43:48,880 --> 00:43:49,120
Speaker 13: You have.

693
00:43:49,239 --> 00:43:53,279
Speaker 10: It's Team Hung, all right, it's I mean those are

694
00:43:53,560 --> 00:43:56,960
Speaker 10: I mean, contrasts are very serious deals. Yes, and so

695
00:43:57,200 --> 00:43:59,120
Speaker 10: they require attention. That's true.

696
00:43:59,600 --> 00:44:02,680
Speaker 1: And the record he's talking about here was very real

697
00:44:03,120 --> 00:44:08,280
Speaker 1: and recorded absurdly fast. Just a month after this special aired,

698
00:44:08,800 --> 00:44:12,480
Speaker 1: William's album was out on April sixth, two thousand and four,

699
00:44:12,760 --> 00:44:16,200
Speaker 1: and it was titled Inspiration like you heard in the

700
00:44:16,200 --> 00:44:22,200
Speaker 1: primetime interview. The album carefully projects Hung's image, inspirational in

701
00:44:22,280 --> 00:44:25,920
Speaker 1: the no regrets sense, but still clearly pushing him to

702
00:44:25,960 --> 00:44:29,439
Speaker 1: look silly. Of course, it leads with The she Bang's cover,

703
00:44:29,960 --> 00:44:33,240
Speaker 1: and the rest are kind of randomized covers with really

704
00:44:33,440 --> 00:44:38,319
Speaker 1: basic karaoke tracks behind them. With respect to william it

705
00:44:38,640 --> 00:44:41,000
Speaker 1: sounds like an album that was recorded in a weekend,

706
00:44:41,280 --> 00:44:57,000
Speaker 1: because it was He covers eagles.

707
00:44:51,880 --> 00:45:01,359
Speaker 14: On cooing am I as he covers Elton John and then'

708
00:45:01,440 --> 00:45:02,040
Speaker 14: Gonna be.

709
00:45:02,400 --> 00:45:10,239
Speaker 15: As a tibine And of course the album can't be

710
00:45:10,280 --> 00:45:12,480
Speaker 15: complete without the YMC a.

711
00:45:14,600 --> 00:45:16,000
Speaker 10: WHYMC.

712
00:45:16,800 --> 00:45:23,320
Speaker 4: It's hard to say, why m C hey, I'm everything?

713
00:45:23,680 --> 00:45:26,680
Speaker 15: Well your man to John you can hang out with

714
00:45:26,920 --> 00:45:30,200
Speaker 15: Pole say.

715
00:45:30,640 --> 00:45:35,000
Speaker 1: Interwoven into this worth these zen like monologues that fed

716
00:45:35,080 --> 00:45:38,480
Speaker 1: into Williams. Don't give up persona.

717
00:45:38,719 --> 00:45:41,239
Speaker 10: Even with a lot of talent and singing, even with

718
00:45:41,280 --> 00:45:43,239
Speaker 10: a lot of talent in whatever you choose to do,

719
00:45:43,560 --> 00:45:46,520
Speaker 10: you still have to put in this hard walk and

720
00:45:46,560 --> 00:45:51,200
Speaker 10: you need that determination and persevereance not to give up.

721
00:45:51,680 --> 00:45:55,200
Speaker 1: And was this album reviewed well, No, of course not.

722
00:45:55,560 --> 00:45:57,840
Speaker 1: But by the end of April it had broken the

723
00:45:57,880 --> 00:46:01,640
Speaker 1: top thirty in the country with over forty thousand sales,

724
00:46:02,000 --> 00:46:04,800
Speaker 1: and it would go on to move two hundred thousand.

725
00:46:05,480 --> 00:46:08,440
Speaker 1: William got paid a twenty five thousand dollars advance to

726
00:46:08,480 --> 00:46:11,279
Speaker 1: record the album, which you Don't need Me to tell

727
00:46:11,320 --> 00:46:14,000
Speaker 1: you is a life changing amount of money, especially for

728
00:46:14,080 --> 00:46:16,880
Speaker 1: a college student, and so he decided to take a

729
00:46:16,920 --> 00:46:21,880
Speaker 1: step back from school while he explored whatever this was.

730
00:46:22,680 --> 00:46:25,759
Speaker 1: But this didn't come without its fair share of criticism,

731
00:46:26,360 --> 00:46:30,160
Speaker 1: particularly among Asian writers and critics who couldn't help it

732
00:46:30,160 --> 00:46:34,080
Speaker 1: feel uncomfortable with the way that William was being positioned

733
00:46:34,120 --> 00:46:38,000
Speaker 1: by the media. Emil Guillermo wrote for s Fgate in

734
00:46:38,040 --> 00:46:39,279
Speaker 1: April two thousand and four.

735
00:46:39,920 --> 00:46:44,000
Speaker 11: When I first saw Hong Kong born UC Berkeley engineering

736
00:46:44,000 --> 00:46:48,320
Speaker 11: student William Hung sing that Ricky Martin song on Fox's

737
00:46:48,320 --> 00:46:52,600
Speaker 11: American Idol last January, I tried to ignore it, but

738
00:46:52,920 --> 00:46:57,600
Speaker 11: after Hung's humiliation, there came a nice outpouring of sympathy

739
00:46:57,719 --> 00:47:02,560
Speaker 11: for the rejected puppy dog. Here was an accented Asian

740
00:47:02,600 --> 00:47:06,920
Speaker 11: American with bad hair, bad teeth, bad moves, and a

741
00:47:07,000 --> 00:47:11,680
Speaker 11: bad accent, and even though he can't sing, America still

742
00:47:11,760 --> 00:47:16,560
Speaker 11: loved him. Certainly, there'd be no shortage of worthy candidates

743
00:47:16,640 --> 00:47:21,720
Speaker 11: for Hung Like stardom. Regular American Idol viewers know tons

744
00:47:21,920 --> 00:47:25,239
Speaker 11: of good singers that have been rejected and abused by

745
00:47:25,280 --> 00:47:31,400
Speaker 11: these shows. Simon Cowell, the difference here Hung is Asian

746
00:47:31,440 --> 00:47:36,520
Speaker 11: American and the accented foreigner gag is still considered acceptable

747
00:47:36,600 --> 00:47:40,480
Speaker 11: shtick in modern comedy, at least when it comes to

748
00:47:40,640 --> 00:47:45,600
Speaker 11: Asian Americans. As Asian Americans, we look through this racial

749
00:47:45,719 --> 00:47:48,839
Speaker 11: lens and we see this guy who embodies all these

750
00:47:48,880 --> 00:47:52,879
Speaker 11: stereotypes we are trying to escape from, said James Howe,

751
00:47:52,960 --> 00:47:56,799
Speaker 11: a documentary filmmaker who explored Asian American male sexuality in

752
00:47:57,200 --> 00:47:58,440
Speaker 11: Masters of the Pillow.

753
00:47:59,080 --> 00:48:01,480
Speaker 1: And we will be talked about this more in depth

754
00:48:01,600 --> 00:48:06,040
Speaker 1: next week, but this conversation is obviously very relevant then

755
00:48:06,360 --> 00:48:10,680
Speaker 1: and now, and something that Williams spoken on for two decades,

756
00:48:10,840 --> 00:48:14,040
Speaker 1: including in our interview and the rest of two thousand

757
00:48:14,080 --> 00:48:18,680
Speaker 1: and four becomes a complete whirlwind for him. There is

758
00:48:18,719 --> 00:48:22,480
Speaker 1: this very two thousand music video to accompany his she

759
00:48:22,640 --> 00:48:26,919
Speaker 1: Bangs cover. There's a vanity documentary called hang In with Hung,

760
00:48:27,600 --> 00:48:31,160
Speaker 1: and in old school fashion, he goes on this extensive

761
00:48:31,280 --> 00:48:33,400
Speaker 1: late night tour to promote the album.

762
00:48:33,640 --> 00:48:36,920
Speaker 13: Maskats's best known RIZ rendition of Ricky Martin she Bangs

763
00:48:36,920 --> 00:48:39,520
Speaker 13: at the Fox American Idola Audition since Na has become

764
00:48:39,520 --> 00:48:43,240
Speaker 13: an overnight cultural phenomenon. Lady Gentlemen, Harris and I performing

765
00:48:43,320 --> 00:48:46,400
Speaker 13: Yes that very song from his debut CD Inspiration, Please

766
00:48:46,440 --> 00:48:48,960
Speaker 13: Welcome William Hung, Lady Guleman.

767
00:48:49,520 --> 00:48:52,480
Speaker 1: And By May two thousand and four, William Hung is

768
00:48:52,520 --> 00:48:55,560
Speaker 1: one of the top acts in the country, performing at

769
00:48:55,560 --> 00:48:58,960
Speaker 1: Wango Tango at the Rose Bowl over a week before

770
00:48:59,040 --> 00:49:04,440
Speaker 1: Fantasia Burina actually won season three of American Idol. The

771
00:49:04,520 --> 00:49:08,560
Speaker 1: other acts at Wango Tango this year buckle In were

772
00:49:09,160 --> 00:49:14,040
Speaker 1: out Cast Ashley Simpson, The Backstreet Boys, Hillary and Haley, Duff,

773
00:49:14,480 --> 00:49:20,640
Speaker 1: Beefy Dobson, Oh My God, the Pussycat Dolls, nerd Jeded Jackson,

774
00:49:20,920 --> 00:49:25,120
Speaker 1: The Black Eyed Keys, and I could keep going. It

775
00:49:25,200 --> 00:49:29,719
Speaker 1: was two thousand and four and William Hung had made it.

776
00:49:32,160 --> 00:49:35,640
Speaker 1: But things started to slow down a little after Season

777
00:49:35,680 --> 00:49:39,400
Speaker 1: three of American Idol wrapped up. He made bank with

778
00:49:39,560 --> 00:49:43,600
Speaker 1: ads for Jack in the Box, Singular Wireless, and Ask Jeeves,

779
00:49:44,120 --> 00:49:47,280
Speaker 1: but by late summer the attention appeared to be slipping.

780
00:49:48,080 --> 00:49:51,520
Speaker 1: In August, the contra cost at times said William was

781
00:49:51,640 --> 00:49:55,600
Speaker 1: quote still hanging on to his fifteen minutes unquote by

782
00:49:55,600 --> 00:50:00,000
Speaker 1: taking his act to Singapore. Then he released a second

783
00:50:00,080 --> 00:50:03,239
Speaker 1: an album in two thousand and four called Hung for

784
00:50:03,320 --> 00:50:07,960
Speaker 1: the Holidays that didn't go over quite as well as Inspiration.

785
00:50:11,200 --> 00:50:16,759
Speaker 10: City s, I Walched, Busy, Sy Watched Dress and Holliday

786
00:50:17,160 --> 00:50:20,640
Speaker 10: stylele in the Airds.

787
00:50:20,239 --> 00:50:24,160
Speaker 1: And things never again really reached the heights that they

788
00:50:24,200 --> 00:50:27,080
Speaker 1: had for William in two thousand and four, with year

789
00:50:27,200 --> 00:50:31,040
Speaker 1: end lists declaring William Hung around for a long time.

790
00:50:31,880 --> 00:50:36,360
Speaker 1: From here, William becomes a popular reference, but was unlikely

791
00:50:36,440 --> 00:50:40,000
Speaker 1: to make those big wango tango appearances he once did,

792
00:50:40,719 --> 00:50:45,640
Speaker 1: particularly after his third and final album, Miracle Happy Summer

793
00:50:45,680 --> 00:50:49,320
Speaker 1: from William Hung failed to make waves in two thousand

794
00:50:49,320 --> 00:50:50,239
Speaker 1: and five because the.

795
00:50:50,239 --> 00:50:55,040
Speaker 4: Sun is shutting, Oh the Sun. Those like a perfect Day,

796
00:50:56,360 --> 00:51:00,800
Speaker 4: I love it, we love it.

797
00:51:02,360 --> 00:51:07,560
Speaker 1: Fan sites are updated less frequently and then not at all.

798
00:51:07,680 --> 00:51:10,640
Speaker 1: He makes a few cameos here and there, most notably

799
00:51:10,800 --> 00:51:13,200
Speaker 1: in Arrested Development in two thousand and six.

800
00:51:13,560 --> 00:51:16,200
Speaker 16: If you know, you know, well, it looks like we've

801
00:51:16,200 --> 00:51:17,080
Speaker 16: got a mistrial.

802
00:51:17,200 --> 00:51:19,800
Speaker 9: But on the plus side, we've also got a hung.

803
00:51:19,800 --> 00:51:29,760
Speaker 1: Jury hit it. But William was soon down to private

804
00:51:29,800 --> 00:51:33,160
Speaker 1: appearances and gigs. A two thousand and six clipping said

805
00:51:33,239 --> 00:51:36,600
Speaker 1: he charged four thousand dollars to play your holiday party,

806
00:51:37,040 --> 00:51:40,719
Speaker 1: He'd made appearances at baseball games, he was declared the

807
00:51:40,880 --> 00:51:43,839
Speaker 1: art of choke king question Mark. The list goes on,

808
00:51:44,719 --> 00:51:47,280
Speaker 1: and by the end of the two thousands he seemed

809
00:51:47,280 --> 00:51:51,440
Speaker 1: to just be scraping by, and the whole ditching college

810
00:51:51,440 --> 00:51:55,160
Speaker 1: for entertainment thing didn't seem like the right choice anymore.

811
00:51:56,239 --> 00:51:58,319
Speaker 1: So it was time to return to school and get

812
00:51:58,360 --> 00:52:01,240
Speaker 1: a day job, even in the midst of a surprise

813
00:52:01,400 --> 00:52:05,000
Speaker 1: cameo on Idol in twenty ten. Because keep in mind,

814
00:52:05,280 --> 00:52:08,360
Speaker 1: William is consistent in having no bad blood with the show,

815
00:52:08,840 --> 00:52:10,560
Speaker 1: he then made a try of it as a high

816
00:52:10,600 --> 00:52:14,680
Speaker 1: school math teacher for a time, something he references in

817
00:52:14,719 --> 00:52:18,799
Speaker 1: his Ted Talks because for some reason, if you're a

818
00:52:18,880 --> 00:52:22,480
Speaker 1: sixteenth minute character, you will somehow end up with a

819
00:52:22,520 --> 00:52:25,680
Speaker 1: Ted talk. He talks about his experience teaching here.

820
00:52:26,360 --> 00:52:28,680
Speaker 10: But then when I asked the students to do the

821
00:52:28,880 --> 00:52:37,640
Speaker 10: math problems, they refused. Could it be my thinking? Then

822
00:52:38,040 --> 00:52:42,239
Speaker 10: my master teacher gestured to me to get our class.

823
00:52:42,600 --> 00:52:46,839
Speaker 10: He said, William, if you kick this up, I will

824
00:52:46,880 --> 00:52:50,520
Speaker 10: fail you. He had to take over the class for

825
00:52:50,680 --> 00:52:55,440
Speaker 10: rest of the day. When I went home, I cried

826
00:52:56,320 --> 00:53:00,560
Speaker 10: because I felt like that was one of the most

827
00:53:00,760 --> 00:53:05,719
Speaker 10: embarrassing moments in my life. It's like getting booed off

828
00:53:05,719 --> 00:53:06,320
Speaker 10: the stage.

829
00:53:07,160 --> 00:53:11,600
Speaker 1: And look, anyone teaching high schoolers is five thousand times

830
00:53:11,680 --> 00:53:15,880
Speaker 1: braver than me. I would never After teaching high school,

831
00:53:16,040 --> 00:53:19,600
Speaker 1: William went back to school as a student, finishing his

832
00:53:19,680 --> 00:53:22,680
Speaker 1: degree in math at cal State Northridge in twenty ten,

833
00:53:23,160 --> 00:53:26,120
Speaker 1: then getting a master's degree, and he's now working on

834
00:53:26,239 --> 00:53:30,280
Speaker 1: a second master's degree. After he flunked out as a teacher,

835
00:53:30,560 --> 00:53:34,640
Speaker 1: he became a data analyst for the despised La County

836
00:53:34,800 --> 00:53:40,759
Speaker 1: Sheriff's Department, leading me to the crucial question, does a

837
00:53:41,000 --> 00:53:47,279
Speaker 1: cab include William Hung? Very possibly? He then goes over

838
00:53:47,360 --> 00:53:51,000
Speaker 1: to the Department of Public Health, then more recently, back

839
00:53:51,040 --> 00:53:54,880
Speaker 1: to the Sheriff's department. William, I just want to talk.

840
00:53:55,520 --> 00:53:59,239
Speaker 1: But through all this, William keeps up with his public profile.

841
00:53:59,719 --> 00:54:02,919
Speaker 1: There the Ted Talks in the twenty tens, and there's

842
00:54:03,000 --> 00:54:06,160
Speaker 1: his on and off career as a celebrity poker player.

843
00:54:06,560 --> 00:54:08,560
Speaker 17: So obviously the dream for a lot of people is

844
00:54:08,560 --> 00:54:10,799
Speaker 17: to end up playing professionally. And I feel like You've

845
00:54:10,800 --> 00:54:12,480
Speaker 17: done a lot of cool things in your life. You

846
00:54:12,520 --> 00:54:14,400
Speaker 17: got to sing, you got to travel the world and

847
00:54:14,480 --> 00:54:17,319
Speaker 17: perform for people, so what would it feel like to

848
00:54:17,400 --> 00:54:19,640
Speaker 17: reach that level of being able to play poker professionally.

849
00:54:19,960 --> 00:54:22,200
Speaker 10: I think you'll be awesome because if I can't do

850
00:54:22,280 --> 00:54:25,239
Speaker 10: that like some of the tournament professionals, I get to

851
00:54:25,280 --> 00:54:29,920
Speaker 10: travel across the world through charity like you, That'd be fantastic.

852
00:54:30,200 --> 00:54:33,239
Speaker 1: And this poker side hustle started as a hobby and

853
00:54:33,280 --> 00:54:37,960
Speaker 1: began to tumble into gambling addiction, which Hanga said contributed

854
00:54:38,000 --> 00:54:41,479
Speaker 1: to the end of his first marriage. In twenty twenty four,

855
00:54:41,800 --> 00:54:44,520
Speaker 1: at the beginning of his making the press rounds for

856
00:54:44,600 --> 00:54:48,440
Speaker 1: the twentieth anniversary of the She Bangs audition, he shared

857
00:54:48,480 --> 00:54:52,040
Speaker 1: about recovering from gambling addiction. This is from a talk

858
00:54:52,080 --> 00:54:53,080
Speaker 1: with People magazine.

859
00:54:53,840 --> 00:54:56,560
Speaker 11: I knew I was good at poker, but then I

860
00:54:56,600 --> 00:55:01,200
Speaker 11: got greedy. I got into sports betting, the whole gamut.

861
00:55:01,880 --> 00:55:05,280
Speaker 11: I know better now. I wasn't supposed to do those things,

862
00:55:05,320 --> 00:55:07,160
Speaker 11: but I did it anyway, and.

863
00:55:07,120 --> 00:55:08,000
Speaker 9: I paid for it.

864
00:55:08,719 --> 00:55:12,120
Speaker 11: I got divorced, and I learned I had to be

865
00:55:12,200 --> 00:55:15,439
Speaker 11: smart about which risks I chose to take.

866
00:55:16,480 --> 00:55:19,720
Speaker 1: But through all of this, over the course of twenty years,

867
00:55:19,880 --> 00:55:24,040
Speaker 1: William's message has remained consistent even as he's had to

868
00:55:24,040 --> 00:55:28,400
Speaker 1: contend with all of this criticism, exploitation, and even addiction.

869
00:55:29,120 --> 00:55:33,879
Speaker 1: He's an extremely resilient person and very kind. And when

870
00:55:33,880 --> 00:55:38,480
Speaker 1: we come back, I'm speaking with a man himself, William

871
00:55:38,840 --> 00:55:58,160
Speaker 1: m f huh. Welcome back to sixteenth minute, when American

872
00:55:58,239 --> 00:56:01,520
Speaker 1: Idol debuted. I was in element Cory School and was

873
00:56:01,840 --> 00:56:04,960
Speaker 1: so inspired to also become a pop star like Kelly

874
00:56:04,960 --> 00:56:07,960
Speaker 1: Clarkson that I went to audition to sing the national

875
00:56:07,960 --> 00:56:10,759
Speaker 1: anthem at a minor, minor league baseball game in my

876
00:56:10,880 --> 00:56:14,480
Speaker 1: city in spite of the fact that I was paralyzingly shy.

877
00:56:15,239 --> 00:56:19,880
Speaker 1: And guess what, bitch, I got the gig wearing what

878
00:56:20,040 --> 00:56:23,920
Speaker 1: I now realize, we're somewhat culturally insensitive twisties and a

879
00:56:23,960 --> 00:56:28,160
Speaker 1: Walmart shirt that said all American Girl. I sang the

880
00:56:28,280 --> 00:56:34,000
Speaker 1: national anthem to four thousand people, and I was fine,

881
00:56:34,800 --> 00:56:37,560
Speaker 1: take off your hat and stand or don't because America

882
00:56:37,640 --> 00:57:03,120
Speaker 1: is not a respectable place. But listen to baby Jamie. Okay,

883
00:57:03,160 --> 00:57:06,600
Speaker 1: a little pitchy dog at the end, but good for her.

884
00:57:06,680 --> 00:57:09,719
Speaker 1: She's got a big future in radio. And today we

885
00:57:09,760 --> 00:57:13,600
Speaker 1: are revisiting the saga of William Honk and I say,

886
00:57:13,600 --> 00:57:16,040
Speaker 1: why not just cut to the chase and let's talk

887
00:57:16,080 --> 00:57:19,840
Speaker 1: to the man himself. So, without further ado, here is

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00:57:19,920 --> 00:57:22,840
Speaker 1: my interview with the one and only William Honk.

889
00:57:23,120 --> 00:57:26,560
Speaker 10: Hi everyone, this is William Houn. You're probably the only

890
00:57:26,880 --> 00:57:31,200
Speaker 10: from my American Idol audition back in two thousand and four.

891
00:57:32,120 --> 00:57:36,760
Speaker 10: It was a very unique audition. I sang the song

892
00:57:36,840 --> 00:57:37,960
Speaker 10: by Ricky Martin.

893
00:57:38,480 --> 00:57:43,320
Speaker 1: She bangs the definitive performance of that song. With all

894
00:57:43,400 --> 00:57:46,280
Speaker 1: due respect to Ricky Martin. Thank you so much for

895
00:57:46,360 --> 00:57:49,200
Speaker 1: doing this. I'm so excited to talk to you.

896
00:57:49,200 --> 00:57:49,800
Speaker 10: You're welcome.

897
00:57:50,280 --> 00:57:55,480
Speaker 1: It's the twentieth anniversary of your audition originally airing, and

898
00:57:55,520 --> 00:57:58,000
Speaker 1: there were some pieces and some interviews with you. What

899
00:57:58,160 --> 00:58:01,880
Speaker 1: is it like to reflect on that moment.

900
00:58:02,560 --> 00:58:05,320
Speaker 10: I can't believe the time went by so fast.

901
00:58:05,600 --> 00:58:09,280
Speaker 1: Before we get into talking about American Idol and reflecting

902
00:58:09,360 --> 00:58:11,960
Speaker 1: on that, tell me a little bit about yourself. Where

903
00:58:12,000 --> 00:58:13,800
Speaker 1: did you grow up, How did you grow up? Who

904
00:58:13,840 --> 00:58:15,320
Speaker 1: were you at the time of this audition.

905
00:58:15,800 --> 00:58:21,640
Speaker 10: Well, I used to enjoy singing karaoke when I was

906
00:58:21,760 --> 00:58:25,000
Speaker 10: very young, around ten years old with my parents. And

907
00:58:25,040 --> 00:58:27,480
Speaker 10: then something that people might not know about me is

908
00:58:27,520 --> 00:58:32,200
Speaker 10: that I geek out on video games and math. I'm

909
00:58:32,280 --> 00:58:36,480
Speaker 10: very good at video games. I'm very good at math. Actually,

910
00:58:37,120 --> 00:58:40,000
Speaker 10: you know, wherefore I put my heart into I feel

911
00:58:40,000 --> 00:58:43,479
Speaker 10: like I can get to the top. That was my mentality.

912
00:58:44,600 --> 00:58:47,520
Speaker 10: When I played Pokemon trading card game when I was younger,

913
00:58:47,960 --> 00:58:50,520
Speaker 10: I made it all the way to the World Championships.

914
00:58:50,840 --> 00:58:52,040
Speaker 1: Wait, tell me about that.

915
00:58:52,360 --> 00:58:56,160
Speaker 10: Yeah, so you know, I started playing casually with my friends,

916
00:58:56,560 --> 00:58:59,880
Speaker 10: you know, in school, and then I competed in local

917
00:59:00,040 --> 00:59:02,280
Speaker 10: Tolerman's and then I just woke. I just walked my

918
00:59:02,280 --> 00:59:06,240
Speaker 10: your way up, you know, city level, state level, world level.

919
00:59:06,280 --> 00:59:07,480
Speaker 10: It's like, I can't believe it.

920
00:59:08,120 --> 00:59:10,640
Speaker 1: God, Wait, how old were you when you were doing

921
00:59:10,640 --> 00:59:11,520
Speaker 1: those tournaments?

922
00:59:11,560 --> 00:59:14,640
Speaker 10: Like I think it's the high school college years before

923
00:59:14,680 --> 00:59:15,600
Speaker 10: American Idol. Yeah.

924
00:59:15,920 --> 00:59:19,360
Speaker 1: Where were the World Championships? Did you travel to compete?

925
00:59:19,400 --> 00:59:19,480
Speaker 3: Like?

926
00:59:19,480 --> 00:59:20,000
Speaker 1: What did you do?

927
00:59:20,480 --> 00:59:24,520
Speaker 10: Yeah? I remember the World Championships was in San Diego

928
00:59:24,720 --> 00:59:28,800
Speaker 10: in California, so it's not too far, but it was

929
00:59:29,040 --> 00:59:30,760
Speaker 10: definitely a memory I'll never forget.

930
00:59:31,040 --> 00:59:33,840
Speaker 1: So you're you're very passionate. When you like something, you

931
00:59:34,040 --> 00:59:34,880
Speaker 1: like it hard.

932
00:59:35,840 --> 00:59:36,800
Speaker 10: Yes.

933
00:59:37,240 --> 00:59:40,440
Speaker 1: What were your go to games growing up?

934
00:59:40,600 --> 00:59:40,800
Speaker 15: Oh?

935
00:59:40,920 --> 00:59:45,720
Speaker 10: I love Super Mario Brothers, Tetris. I played a lot

936
00:59:45,720 --> 00:59:50,080
Speaker 10: of role playing games like Selda Final Fantasy.

937
00:59:50,640 --> 00:59:52,400
Speaker 1: That's so cool. That you did it with your that

938
00:59:52,480 --> 00:59:55,680
Speaker 1: it was like a family activity too. What were your

939
00:59:56,480 --> 00:59:59,520
Speaker 1: parents and families go to songs? Oh?

940
00:59:59,600 --> 01:00:05,000
Speaker 10: They they liked the older Chinese songs. I wasn't used

941
01:00:05,040 --> 01:00:09,280
Speaker 10: to listening to American pop music. I only took it

942
01:00:09,360 --> 01:00:13,800
Speaker 10: upon myself after I started in college. I went to

943
01:00:14,120 --> 01:00:18,400
Speaker 10: civil Engineering to study at Berkeley, and I thought everything

944
01:00:18,400 --> 01:00:20,400
Speaker 10: would be good because high school was easy for me.

945
01:00:20,840 --> 01:00:25,040
Speaker 10: But in college, no, not so easy. I was struggling.

946
01:00:25,400 --> 01:00:28,320
Speaker 10: I almost got kicked out of school, and I figured, Okay,

947
01:00:28,400 --> 01:00:32,120
Speaker 10: well I need to try something else. One day I

948
01:00:32,160 --> 01:00:37,040
Speaker 10: started poster for a school talent show. Yes, and I

949
01:00:37,080 --> 01:00:41,440
Speaker 10: started watching and studying the music videos from Ricky Martin online.

950
01:00:41,760 --> 01:00:43,360
Speaker 1: It was just like a way of kind of like

951
01:00:43,480 --> 01:00:46,479
Speaker 1: getting out of your head and putting yourself out there.

952
01:00:46,760 --> 01:00:49,400
Speaker 10: Yeah, I mean, I had no expectations. I started the

953
01:00:49,480 --> 01:00:52,040
Speaker 10: talent show. I thought, well, let's see what happens, and

954
01:00:52,080 --> 01:00:57,520
Speaker 10: then somehow, to my surprise, I won. I won a DVD.

955
01:00:57,280 --> 01:01:01,600
Speaker 1: Player that's such an early two thousands price. And what

956
01:01:01,640 --> 01:01:04,040
Speaker 1: did you sing? Did you sing? She bangs at the

957
01:01:04,040 --> 01:01:07,000
Speaker 1: talent show? Yes, I'm curious a little bit. If you

958
01:01:07,280 --> 01:01:10,360
Speaker 1: don't mind getting into it high school, you were in

959
01:01:10,520 --> 01:01:13,760
Speaker 1: the Was it the Van Nuys area once you moved?

960
01:01:14,200 --> 01:01:14,520
Speaker 10: Yes?

961
01:01:14,600 --> 01:01:16,200
Speaker 1: And then when when did you move to the US?

962
01:01:16,240 --> 01:01:20,560
Speaker 10: Originally a long time ago, like like the nineteen ninety

963
01:01:20,600 --> 01:01:21,800
Speaker 10: three maybe, yeah.

964
01:01:21,600 --> 01:01:25,040
Speaker 1: Okay, so the elementary So high school's kind of a breeze.

965
01:01:25,240 --> 01:01:28,080
Speaker 1: What changes in college? Is it just the adjustment? Was

966
01:01:28,080 --> 01:01:30,840
Speaker 1: it the program you were in? Like, yeah, take me

967
01:01:30,840 --> 01:01:31,680
Speaker 1: through that a little bit.

968
01:01:31,880 --> 01:01:33,920
Speaker 10: I think the part of it is that I feel

969
01:01:33,920 --> 01:01:36,720
Speaker 10: like it's hard. It's harder to find the support because

970
01:01:36,800 --> 01:01:39,880
Speaker 10: in the beginning I didn't know where to find the support.

971
01:01:40,120 --> 01:01:42,680
Speaker 10: I was getting by. I was passing, but I wasn't

972
01:01:42,720 --> 01:01:45,880
Speaker 10: doing great. I struggle. My foundation was not very good.

973
01:01:46,400 --> 01:01:48,680
Speaker 10: And that's that. And then and then eventually I need

974
01:01:48,720 --> 01:01:51,240
Speaker 10: to get get some help, you know, from my peers,

975
01:01:51,280 --> 01:01:53,920
Speaker 10: from tutors, I fold away. You know, I found a

976
01:01:53,920 --> 01:01:56,280
Speaker 10: way around it. But I got through it. But but

977
01:01:56,320 --> 01:01:59,320
Speaker 10: it's still not the same because maybe in high school

978
01:01:59,640 --> 01:02:03,120
Speaker 10: it was easier to get that, you know, a right

979
01:02:03,320 --> 01:02:05,920
Speaker 10: in college and college is so different.

980
01:02:06,880 --> 01:02:09,640
Speaker 1: So you do this talent show, you preform, she bangs,

981
01:02:09,840 --> 01:02:13,480
Speaker 1: you win, You've got the DVD player. What happens next?

982
01:02:13,720 --> 01:02:16,800
Speaker 10: A few days later, I heard on the news that

983
01:02:16,920 --> 01:02:21,240
Speaker 10: they have American Idol auditions coming to San Francisco. I

984
01:02:21,360 --> 01:02:22,960
Speaker 10: decided it was a good time to try.

985
01:02:23,160 --> 01:02:24,920
Speaker 1: Were you a fan of the show at the time.

986
01:02:25,240 --> 01:02:28,840
Speaker 10: I wasn't sure. I didn't know what some of the

987
01:02:28,840 --> 01:02:33,320
Speaker 10: auditions look like. I felt like it was either very

988
01:02:33,360 --> 01:02:36,800
Speaker 10: good or very bad. And I knew that Simon cow

989
01:02:37,200 --> 01:02:43,320
Speaker 10: was the mean guy. Yes, Randy is the wild card,

990
01:02:43,760 --> 01:02:45,960
Speaker 10: and then Paula was going to be a nice lady.

991
01:02:46,120 --> 01:02:48,880
Speaker 1: Tell me about the experience of auditioning because I know

992
01:02:48,960 --> 01:02:52,600
Speaker 1: that now understanding how Reality TV is edited, which I

993
01:02:52,640 --> 01:02:56,760
Speaker 1: didn't at the time, the experience of auditioning, and then

994
01:02:56,800 --> 01:02:59,200
Speaker 1: we'll talk about the edit that was released. But what

995
01:02:59,280 --> 01:03:00,840
Speaker 1: was the audition experience like?

996
01:03:01,160 --> 01:03:04,960
Speaker 10: Well, they asked me more questions. Uh, they asked me

997
01:03:05,200 --> 01:03:09,439
Speaker 10: why I want to audition? What makes meeting I could

998
01:03:09,480 --> 01:03:13,320
Speaker 10: become the next American Idol? And for the listeners, you

999
01:03:13,360 --> 01:03:16,640
Speaker 10: can you can look at the extended audition online.

1000
01:03:17,000 --> 01:03:17,840
Speaker 1: How does the day go?

1001
01:03:18,920 --> 01:03:21,959
Speaker 10: You stand in line, you wait, you you sit down

1002
01:03:22,480 --> 01:03:24,600
Speaker 10: on the bench. You know, it was at baseball park,

1003
01:03:24,760 --> 01:03:28,200
Speaker 10: so I wait for my turn along with thousands of people.

1004
01:03:28,480 --> 01:03:31,000
Speaker 10: But when I got close to my turn, I was lucky.

1005
01:03:31,040 --> 01:03:32,880
Speaker 10: I only had to wait for a few hours. But

1006
01:03:33,120 --> 01:03:36,560
Speaker 10: I was watching all these people in front of me.

1007
01:03:36,960 --> 01:03:40,760
Speaker 10: They only got like fifteen seconds to sing before they

1008
01:03:40,760 --> 01:03:43,840
Speaker 10: were told to go home. And then I thought, well,

1009
01:03:44,120 --> 01:03:46,560
Speaker 10: maybe it will be the same result for me. You know,

1010
01:03:46,880 --> 01:03:49,160
Speaker 10: I have no reason to believe that I would suddenly

1011
01:03:49,200 --> 01:03:51,200
Speaker 10: make it to Hollywood or even get to see Reddy

1012
01:03:51,280 --> 01:03:54,320
Speaker 10: Paula assignment. It takes multiple rounds. So I saw the

1013
01:03:54,360 --> 01:03:57,000
Speaker 10: staff members they were they were going to the other

1014
01:03:57,040 --> 01:04:00,520
Speaker 10: people really quick, and then I thought, oh, no, is

1015
01:04:00,520 --> 01:04:03,000
Speaker 10: it gonna be the same for me? And then they

1016
01:04:03,080 --> 01:04:05,440
Speaker 10: let me stay over a minute, and then they somehow

1017
01:04:05,440 --> 01:04:07,440
Speaker 10: they let me through. They told me to come back

1018
01:04:07,480 --> 01:04:08,080
Speaker 10: the next day.

1019
01:04:08,280 --> 01:04:10,040
Speaker 1: How many people are invited back.

1020
01:04:09,920 --> 01:04:12,960
Speaker 10: It's about two hundred, maybe one hundred and eighty auditioned

1021
01:04:12,960 --> 01:04:15,760
Speaker 10: in front of the producers. And then and then you know,

1022
01:04:15,840 --> 01:04:19,680
Speaker 10: they told me the same she bangs I did. And

1023
01:04:19,720 --> 01:04:22,800
Speaker 10: then I thought, well it could I mean, at any

1024
01:04:22,880 --> 01:04:26,120
Speaker 10: point I thought I would be done, that's it the war.

1025
01:04:26,880 --> 01:04:30,840
Speaker 10: But somehow they let me through again. Okay, it's when

1026
01:04:30,880 --> 01:04:33,920
Speaker 10: I get to see Randy Paula and Simon. I know

1027
01:04:34,080 --> 01:04:36,320
Speaker 10: that because as soon as I get past the second

1028
01:04:36,360 --> 01:04:39,800
Speaker 10: of the producers, I got to meet Ryan Secret.

1029
01:04:40,200 --> 01:04:42,280
Speaker 1: Did your friends know you were doing this? Did you

1030
01:04:42,320 --> 01:04:43,680
Speaker 1: sort of do it on a whim?

1031
01:04:43,960 --> 01:04:48,240
Speaker 10: Oh? No. I tried to keep it to myself. I

1032
01:04:48,240 --> 01:04:50,480
Speaker 10: didn't want to let to me if people know about it.

1033
01:04:50,600 --> 01:04:55,520
Speaker 10: I only told one classmate friend because I knew that

1034
01:04:55,560 --> 01:04:57,680
Speaker 10: I had to miss a couple of days of classes,

1035
01:04:58,080 --> 01:05:00,280
Speaker 10: so I told her to take those for me. I

1036
01:05:01,240 --> 01:05:02,480
Speaker 10: treat you afterwards.

1037
01:05:03,520 --> 01:05:07,320
Speaker 1: Wow, okay, So then the audition happens. Then you what

1038
01:05:07,560 --> 01:05:09,320
Speaker 1: do you have to just like return to your life.

1039
01:05:09,600 --> 01:05:12,760
Speaker 1: How much time is there between the audition and when it.

1040
01:05:12,720 --> 01:05:14,800
Speaker 10: Airs, about four months difference?

1041
01:05:14,920 --> 01:05:16,880
Speaker 1: How did you feel afterwards? Was it just like, well

1042
01:05:16,880 --> 01:05:17,479
Speaker 1: that was fun?

1043
01:05:17,760 --> 01:05:17,960
Speaker 5: Yeah?

1044
01:05:18,040 --> 01:05:20,000
Speaker 10: Yeah, yeah, I no, really, I had no reason to

1045
01:05:20,440 --> 01:05:23,800
Speaker 10: expect anything else. I know, they told me that, you know,

1046
01:05:23,880 --> 01:05:26,439
Speaker 10: you're not you're not ready for this. You cannot move

1047
01:05:26,480 --> 01:05:29,400
Speaker 10: on to Hollywood. It's okay, I mean I expected that result.

1048
01:05:29,520 --> 01:05:34,520
Speaker 10: It's not nothing surprising, But but what was surprising is

1049
01:05:34,560 --> 01:05:37,560
Speaker 10: that the reaction after they you know, I mean, the

1050
01:05:37,560 --> 01:05:40,800
Speaker 10: first thing that surprises is that why they chose to

1051
01:05:40,840 --> 01:05:45,480
Speaker 10: broadcast my audition because in January I saw myself in

1052
01:05:45,520 --> 01:05:46,920
Speaker 10: the football commercial.

1053
01:05:47,400 --> 01:05:50,920
Speaker 1: Was your audition included in like promotions before yours.

1054
01:05:51,640 --> 01:05:54,040
Speaker 10: Yes, it was during the It was during the Cotton

1055
01:05:54,080 --> 01:05:56,760
Speaker 10: Bowl commercial and in New York State. I still remember it.

1056
01:05:56,960 --> 01:05:59,959
Speaker 10: I didn't know what to expect. I have no idea

1057
01:06:00,240 --> 01:06:03,919
Speaker 10: why they would pick my audition to promote a lot,

1058
01:06:04,600 --> 01:06:07,840
Speaker 10: not just on time. And then I was thinking like, like, wait,

1059
01:06:08,000 --> 01:06:10,680
Speaker 10: what what is different? What was different about my audition?

1060
01:06:10,760 --> 01:06:14,560
Speaker 10: Why would they want to make my audition stand out? Uh?

1061
01:06:14,640 --> 01:06:17,080
Speaker 10: Not many people to know this. Last fast forward to

1062
01:06:17,120 --> 01:06:19,920
Speaker 10: the day. I was watching the auditions by myself, and

1063
01:06:20,840 --> 01:06:24,920
Speaker 10: I purposely locked myself in the room, uh, inside my dorm.

1064
01:06:25,440 --> 01:06:27,320
Speaker 10: I didn't want it. I didn't want people to know

1065
01:06:27,360 --> 01:06:29,200
Speaker 10: about it. I don't I don't know how people react

1066
01:06:29,240 --> 01:06:31,960
Speaker 10: to it. So I was watching from the episode from

1067
01:06:32,000 --> 01:06:34,600
Speaker 10: start to finish. Uh, in the you know, the San

1068
01:06:34,640 --> 01:06:38,440
Speaker 10: Francisco episode, right and then and then I noticed that

1069
01:06:39,400 --> 01:06:42,680
Speaker 10: many people who don't make it to Hollywood, they would

1070
01:06:42,680 --> 01:06:44,600
Speaker 10: get angry and upset.

1071
01:06:45,160 --> 01:06:47,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, how did you feel about the Like the way

1072
01:06:47,640 --> 01:06:50,200
Speaker 1: that they edited and sort of framed the audition?

1073
01:06:51,960 --> 01:06:54,960
Speaker 10: I thought I thought it was it was good for me.

1074
01:06:55,320 --> 01:06:58,000
Speaker 10: Uh yeah, I mean, I mean, of course I didn't

1075
01:06:58,000 --> 01:07:03,400
Speaker 10: have the roll, classical talent or the musical talent, you know,

1076
01:07:03,480 --> 01:07:05,280
Speaker 10: if you if you look in from it, you know,

1077
01:07:05,480 --> 01:07:07,400
Speaker 10: if you compare to people that are trained. I know,

1078
01:07:07,640 --> 01:07:09,880
Speaker 10: I mean I know that, I mean I'm self aware

1079
01:07:10,080 --> 01:07:14,080
Speaker 10: enough to know that, but but you know, I feel like, wow,

1080
01:07:14,480 --> 01:07:16,919
Speaker 10: I can't believe that that I'm one of the few

1081
01:07:16,960 --> 01:07:21,360
Speaker 10: people who who was who was positive working out the

1082
01:07:21,400 --> 01:07:22,040
Speaker 10: audition group.

1083
01:07:22,400 --> 01:07:25,280
Speaker 1: Even though the audition is like not framed as this

1084
01:07:25,320 --> 01:07:28,600
Speaker 1: is a good audition. You're someone who like has a

1085
01:07:28,640 --> 01:07:32,360
Speaker 1: lot of composure, and you're like, ohh, so you were

1086
01:07:32,400 --> 01:07:35,960
Speaker 1: you were happy with the appearance generally, yeah, yeah, And

1087
01:07:36,200 --> 01:07:41,160
Speaker 1: overnight you are a student. You are by all accounts,

1088
01:07:41,200 --> 01:07:45,160
Speaker 1: a random person, and then all of a sudden you're

1089
01:07:45,280 --> 01:07:49,800
Speaker 1: William Hung. How quickly do you feel this sort of

1090
01:07:49,880 --> 01:07:53,040
Speaker 1: momentum start and like, how did you handle it?

1091
01:07:53,040 --> 01:07:57,040
Speaker 10: It was overwhelming At first, I got I got so

1092
01:07:57,200 --> 01:08:03,360
Speaker 10: many interview and performing opportunity. I had to talk to

1093
01:08:03,640 --> 01:08:08,280
Speaker 10: my classmate friends. I eventually my parents found out. I

1094
01:08:08,320 --> 01:08:10,040
Speaker 10: also had to talk to my parents.

1095
01:08:10,440 --> 01:08:11,360
Speaker 1: How did they take it?

1096
01:08:12,520 --> 01:08:17,200
Speaker 10: My parents initially they didn't take it that too well.

1097
01:08:17,760 --> 01:08:22,360
Speaker 10: They asked a question, why I put myself on the

1098
01:08:22,400 --> 01:08:23,439
Speaker 10: spot like that, you.

1099
01:08:23,400 --> 01:08:27,479
Speaker 1: Know, why saying was that like not something that they

1100
01:08:27,600 --> 01:08:29,639
Speaker 1: had known you to do in the past.

1101
01:08:29,720 --> 01:08:32,080
Speaker 10: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. They didn't expect that.

1102
01:08:33,520 --> 01:08:36,840
Speaker 1: What kind of opportunities were being presented in the first

1103
01:08:36,880 --> 01:08:38,080
Speaker 1: sort of wave of attention.

1104
01:08:38,520 --> 01:08:42,200
Speaker 10: The first ones I did I remember were Entertainment Tonight,

1105
01:08:43,200 --> 01:08:46,919
Speaker 10: Ryan ste Kreshow and Ellen de Generous.

1106
01:08:47,160 --> 01:08:49,240
Speaker 1: I'm interested to talk about and I know this has

1107
01:08:49,240 --> 01:08:52,240
Speaker 1: been sort of reflected on in the twenty year articles,

1108
01:08:52,600 --> 01:08:56,640
Speaker 1: all these different ways that you are presented to the

1109
01:08:56,680 --> 01:09:00,559
Speaker 1: public where you are consistently yeah, I'm myself and like,

1110
01:09:00,800 --> 01:09:03,880
Speaker 1: I like singing and this is a positive thing. You know,

1111
01:09:03,920 --> 01:09:08,439
Speaker 1: there's all of these reactions where some people act as

1112
01:09:08,479 --> 01:09:13,600
Speaker 1: if you're not in on the joke. Was that frustrating?

1113
01:09:13,720 --> 01:09:16,640
Speaker 1: Like how do you handle that? Because it's like in retrospect,

1114
01:09:16,960 --> 01:09:19,320
Speaker 1: if you read anything you said, it's very clear that

1115
01:09:19,640 --> 01:09:21,960
Speaker 1: you know you're not approaching this like I am the

1116
01:09:22,000 --> 01:09:23,840
Speaker 1: world's most amazing singer.

1117
01:09:24,040 --> 01:09:26,519
Speaker 10: No, I'm not. The way I approach is that is

1118
01:09:26,560 --> 01:09:32,120
Speaker 10: that I don't feel comfortable with the people twisting my story.

1119
01:09:32,600 --> 01:09:34,839
Speaker 10: And I think I think, you know, I think American

1120
01:09:34,880 --> 01:09:38,400
Speaker 10: Idol is an amazing platform. So it's not from American Idol,

1121
01:09:38,439 --> 01:09:41,920
Speaker 10: it's the media. Some people on the media, they decided

1122
01:09:41,920 --> 01:09:42,879
Speaker 10: to twist the story.

1123
01:09:43,240 --> 01:09:45,920
Speaker 1: You know, what did the media get wrong about you

1124
01:09:46,000 --> 01:09:46,559
Speaker 1: at the time.

1125
01:09:47,680 --> 01:09:52,840
Speaker 10: I don't agree with with my with me, uh, portraying

1126
01:09:53,000 --> 01:09:57,080
Speaker 10: Asian stereotypes, that's the most common one I get.

1127
01:09:57,280 --> 01:09:57,599
Speaker 4: Uh.

1128
01:09:58,439 --> 01:10:01,880
Speaker 10: And the reason I don't agree with that is that, yes,

1129
01:10:02,080 --> 01:10:05,120
Speaker 10: I don't have the raw talent. I you know, I

1130
01:10:05,120 --> 01:10:09,600
Speaker 10: didn't make it to Hollywood right now after many years,

1131
01:10:09,800 --> 01:10:14,000
Speaker 10: you know, I have empathy for those people. I understand

1132
01:10:14,040 --> 01:10:16,960
Speaker 10: where they came from because you know, back in the

1133
01:10:17,040 --> 01:10:19,960
Speaker 10: days we only had very few, We have very few

1134
01:10:20,200 --> 01:10:23,479
Speaker 10: respectable Asian actors or entertainers.

1135
01:10:23,320 --> 01:10:25,879
Speaker 1: And like crossed over into America.

1136
01:10:26,040 --> 01:10:29,400
Speaker 10: Yeah right, all right, maybe Jackie Chan, Michelle Yo. And

1137
01:10:29,439 --> 01:10:30,160
Speaker 10: that's about it.

1138
01:10:30,800 --> 01:10:34,519
Speaker 1: What also interests me, because this is a show about

1139
01:10:34,840 --> 01:10:39,080
Speaker 1: the Internet, is how this happens at this weird point

1140
01:10:39,160 --> 01:10:42,559
Speaker 1: where there's a lot of traditional media covering your story

1141
01:10:42,640 --> 01:10:46,000
Speaker 1: and then there's also like random people on the Internet.

1142
01:10:46,680 --> 01:10:50,240
Speaker 1: I remember that like huge petition to have you returned

1143
01:10:50,240 --> 01:10:54,760
Speaker 1: to American ideas. Oh yeah, yeah, it's a weird technology

1144
01:10:54,800 --> 01:10:59,120
Speaker 1: crossroads too. Were you aware of the internet conversations around you?

1145
01:10:59,120 --> 01:11:02,000
Speaker 1: Did you participate them? What was the situation there?

1146
01:11:02,560 --> 01:11:07,240
Speaker 10: I didn't participate in them because I'm only one person.

1147
01:11:07,280 --> 01:11:10,040
Speaker 10: I could not handle all that totally. Yeah, And I

1148
01:11:10,720 --> 01:11:14,240
Speaker 10: don't think it would be healthy from mental health side

1149
01:11:14,280 --> 01:11:18,440
Speaker 10: of it to look at the worst and negative comments,

1150
01:11:18,680 --> 01:11:22,120
Speaker 10: you know. I mean someone even made up a story

1151
01:11:22,200 --> 01:11:26,040
Speaker 10: that I committed suicide due to hearing over those Yeah. Yeah,

1152
01:11:26,120 --> 01:11:28,040
Speaker 10: it's the article. The article may have been might be

1153
01:11:28,080 --> 01:11:30,640
Speaker 10: still online today. When people ask me about it at

1154
01:11:30,640 --> 01:11:34,200
Speaker 10: that time, I told them I never used drugs. I

1155
01:11:34,240 --> 01:11:38,240
Speaker 10: hate drugs. So I'm standing before you, very very healthy,

1156
01:11:38,920 --> 01:11:40,080
Speaker 10: very positive. Right.

1157
01:11:40,680 --> 01:11:44,160
Speaker 1: How do you maintain and manage your mental health when

1158
01:11:44,160 --> 01:11:49,240
Speaker 1: you're going through something so intense and also not relatable

1159
01:11:49,400 --> 01:11:50,160
Speaker 1: to most people?

1160
01:11:50,280 --> 01:11:50,640
Speaker 10: How do you?

1161
01:11:50,800 --> 01:11:51,800
Speaker 1: How did you manage it?

1162
01:11:52,720 --> 01:11:52,960
Speaker 4: Well?

1163
01:11:53,600 --> 01:11:58,240
Speaker 10: I try. I try to take the positive criticism, the

1164
01:11:58,320 --> 01:12:03,040
Speaker 10: constructive criticism that I can apply to improve myself, you know,

1165
01:12:03,240 --> 01:12:06,439
Speaker 10: like like like how for example, maybe suggestions or how

1166
01:12:06,479 --> 01:12:10,559
Speaker 10: I handle the media suggestions, how I meant how I

1167
01:12:10,880 --> 01:12:14,840
Speaker 10: manage myself you know, moving forward? Uh? And then what

1168
01:12:15,000 --> 01:12:18,479
Speaker 10: the negative criticism that that that's that I cannot apply.

1169
01:12:18,680 --> 01:12:22,599
Speaker 10: I cannot improve myself with. What's the point of listening

1170
01:12:22,640 --> 01:12:26,000
Speaker 10: to it? Just enjoy it? For the aside, we want.

1171
01:12:27,760 --> 01:12:30,760
Speaker 1: More people need to take that advice, and we'll be

1172
01:12:30,840 --> 01:12:48,320
Speaker 1: right back with more from William Hung. Welcome back to

1173
01:12:48,400 --> 01:12:52,120
Speaker 1: sixteenth Minute. My name is Jamie Loftus and Twist. A

1174
01:12:52,200 --> 01:12:57,680
Speaker 1: couple years after my iconic debut at Campanelli Stadium in Brockton, Massachusetts,

1175
01:12:58,120 --> 01:13:02,120
Speaker 1: I sang the national anthem again to another sold out

1176
01:13:02,160 --> 01:13:04,360
Speaker 1: crowd who was there to see baseball and not me,

1177
01:13:04,840 --> 01:13:08,920
Speaker 1: And this time my little brother sang with me, and yes,

1178
01:13:09,120 --> 01:13:13,080
Speaker 1: I had the same culturally insensitive hairstyle. You can blame

1179
01:13:13,120 --> 01:13:16,440
Speaker 1: my mom our. Whole thing became that when a Canadian

1180
01:13:16,479 --> 01:13:19,600
Speaker 1: baseball team came to town, I would sing the American

1181
01:13:19,680 --> 01:13:24,040
Speaker 1: national anthem and Ben would sing the Canadian national anthem.

1182
01:13:24,560 --> 01:13:26,880
Speaker 1: And my brother was really little, so it was very cute.

1183
01:13:27,160 --> 01:13:27,799
Speaker 1: Here's Ben.

1184
01:13:32,280 --> 01:13:33,240
Speaker 4: Ben loved it.

1185
01:13:33,880 --> 01:13:39,040
Speaker 8: They were born a Canadian that had a little anthem.

1186
01:13:39,160 --> 01:13:46,040
Speaker 5: Oh Cada, my home man.

1187
01:13:47,640 --> 01:13:52,160
Speaker 1: Ben, he's slaying there. Anyways, Here's the rest of my

1188
01:13:52,240 --> 01:13:55,360
Speaker 1: interview with William Hung. It all seems like everything happens

1189
01:13:55,479 --> 01:13:59,760
Speaker 1: very fast because you are on the show, there's these

1190
01:14:00,360 --> 01:14:04,400
Speaker 1: different rounds of discourse about you, and then you're making

1191
01:14:04,439 --> 01:14:06,439
Speaker 1: an album. How did that sort of come together?

1192
01:14:07,280 --> 01:14:11,000
Speaker 10: One of my record companies at the time called records.

1193
01:14:11,080 --> 01:14:14,400
Speaker 10: They noticed the opportunity. They saw how I had like

1194
01:14:14,600 --> 01:14:19,000
Speaker 10: insane website traffic for my website. Yeah. Yeah, they mentioned

1195
01:14:19,000 --> 01:14:22,320
Speaker 10: the petition one too. Yeah, they noticed those things, and

1196
01:14:22,360 --> 01:14:25,120
Speaker 10: then they took a chance to reach out to me.

1197
01:14:25,600 --> 01:14:28,400
Speaker 10: They will offer like a twenty five thousand dollars advance

1198
01:14:28,439 --> 01:14:29,640
Speaker 10: for the record contract.

1199
01:14:29,960 --> 01:14:32,320
Speaker 1: Oh my, and you're like a college student, so.

1200
01:14:32,520 --> 01:14:35,960
Speaker 10: Yeah, twenty years ago. Well, I think the money was

1201
01:14:36,080 --> 01:14:39,840
Speaker 10: definitely a factor because I know that that if I

1202
01:14:39,920 --> 01:14:42,840
Speaker 10: take on this opportunity, you know, it'll be it'll be

1203
01:14:42,880 --> 01:14:45,160
Speaker 10: way worth way more than that. You know, it's not

1204
01:14:45,200 --> 01:14:48,519
Speaker 10: just the record contract by itself, it's you know, I'm

1205
01:14:48,600 --> 01:14:51,880
Speaker 10: going to get more performance, more commercials, things like that.

1206
01:14:52,000 --> 01:14:56,040
Speaker 10: So I knew that that financial side, yeah, it makes

1207
01:14:56,080 --> 01:14:58,679
Speaker 10: sense for me to take that chance. But I think

1208
01:14:58,840 --> 01:15:04,240
Speaker 10: on the other side, the I would say the personal brand. Uh,

1209
01:15:04,320 --> 01:15:08,160
Speaker 10: the biggest opportunity I had by taking this is to

1210
01:15:08,240 --> 01:15:10,280
Speaker 10: share my version of my own story.

1211
01:15:10,400 --> 01:15:14,479
Speaker 1: It's like an opportunity to sort of control the narrative

1212
01:15:14,479 --> 01:15:15,240
Speaker 1: about yourself.

1213
01:15:15,320 --> 01:15:17,600
Speaker 10: That was yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the reason. That's the

1214
01:15:17,600 --> 01:15:19,800
Speaker 10: reason I said, yes, that that's the main reason.

1215
01:15:20,160 --> 01:15:22,360
Speaker 1: How did you want to shift things? At that time?

1216
01:15:22,680 --> 01:15:25,799
Speaker 10: I try to focus on the positive. When people question

1217
01:15:26,160 --> 01:15:28,959
Speaker 10: like like why why am I in the entertainment industry?

1218
01:15:29,040 --> 01:15:31,080
Speaker 10: Then that's a common question I get at the time,

1219
01:15:31,520 --> 01:15:33,200
Speaker 10: like like, you don't have to you know, you don't

1220
01:15:33,200 --> 01:15:36,720
Speaker 10: have the word talent. Why you wanted to still do this?

1221
01:15:36,920 --> 01:15:40,240
Speaker 10: You know, don't you realize people are laughing at you?

1222
01:15:40,640 --> 01:15:43,400
Speaker 10: And and I say, my response is that, you know,

1223
01:15:43,560 --> 01:15:46,680
Speaker 10: I can't please everybody, you know I have I know

1224
01:15:46,760 --> 01:15:49,599
Speaker 10: I have fans that that that that want me to perform,

1225
01:15:49,720 --> 01:15:53,320
Speaker 10: they want to see me. Uh. And then I focused

1226
01:15:53,400 --> 01:15:55,559
Speaker 10: on on bringing happiness to my fans.

1227
01:15:55,920 --> 01:15:58,479
Speaker 1: I mean, this first album does super super well. I

1228
01:15:58,520 --> 01:16:01,879
Speaker 1: remember seeing it stares. So you do a couple albums

1229
01:16:01,880 --> 01:16:05,519
Speaker 1: three totals, like two studio albums to christmasself and that's

1230
01:16:05,560 --> 01:16:08,519
Speaker 1: like throughout the mid two thousands. Are you making your

1231
01:16:08,520 --> 01:16:10,080
Speaker 1: full time living off of this at the.

1232
01:16:10,040 --> 01:16:12,880
Speaker 10: Time, Yeah, I did it a full time for about

1233
01:16:12,880 --> 01:16:13,439
Speaker 10: four years.

1234
01:16:13,600 --> 01:16:16,439
Speaker 1: From these very chaotic four years. Do you have any

1235
01:16:16,479 --> 01:16:19,920
Speaker 1: favorite memories or appearances or anything that kind of sticks

1236
01:16:19,920 --> 01:16:22,200
Speaker 1: out to you is like, wow, that was really cool.

1237
01:16:22,880 --> 01:16:25,960
Speaker 10: Well, the one of the most nerve racking performances I

1238
01:16:26,000 --> 01:16:28,280
Speaker 10: did was for the Rose Bowl when I was a

1239
01:16:28,400 --> 01:16:31,800
Speaker 10: rnal last performer, I was on the same level as

1240
01:16:31,880 --> 01:16:35,880
Speaker 10: the you know, Jennet Jackson Black Ice piece at the time,

1241
01:16:35,920 --> 01:16:37,960
Speaker 10: the Room five was crazy.

1242
01:16:38,720 --> 01:16:42,360
Speaker 1: Something that I learned more about from your TED talk

1243
01:16:42,400 --> 01:16:46,120
Speaker 1: that I'm really interested to talk about is the moment

1244
01:16:46,160 --> 01:16:48,400
Speaker 1: where you're like, all right, I'm going to get back

1245
01:16:48,439 --> 01:16:53,040
Speaker 1: to being myself and having kind of a normal life.

1246
01:16:53,160 --> 01:16:56,160
Speaker 1: When did you decide sort of like I don't really

1247
01:16:56,160 --> 01:16:58,760
Speaker 1: want to perform full time anymore, and how did you

1248
01:16:58,920 --> 01:17:01,479
Speaker 1: navigate back into normal life.

1249
01:17:01,560 --> 01:17:04,439
Speaker 10: It's a transition, I think, keeping it real with you,

1250
01:17:05,000 --> 01:17:07,719
Speaker 10: I don't think I can go back to normal life

1251
01:17:07,800 --> 01:17:11,160
Speaker 10: one hundred percent. It just doesn't. I don't that will

1252
01:17:11,240 --> 01:17:14,720
Speaker 10: never happen. But that the way I try to transition

1253
01:17:15,000 --> 01:17:17,240
Speaker 10: is that, you know, I try to do the normal things,

1254
01:17:17,320 --> 01:17:20,400
Speaker 10: you know, going to school, eating a normal meal, not

1255
01:17:20,439 --> 01:17:23,879
Speaker 10: a fancy restaurant, or you know, go and join my hobbies,

1256
01:17:23,960 --> 01:17:27,680
Speaker 10: whether it's playing sports or video games, whatever, hang out

1257
01:17:27,680 --> 01:17:32,479
Speaker 10: with friends. Just gradually get back into the normal life.

1258
01:17:32,640 --> 01:17:35,479
Speaker 1: Take me through your kind of career as you're coming

1259
01:17:35,520 --> 01:17:39,120
Speaker 1: off this wild four year journey.

1260
01:17:39,520 --> 01:17:41,840
Speaker 10: So the first thing I did was I decided that

1261
01:17:41,920 --> 01:17:43,840
Speaker 10: I need to go back to school. I need to

1262
01:17:43,880 --> 01:17:47,679
Speaker 10: finish my degree, and then I changed my major to math.

1263
01:17:48,040 --> 01:17:50,120
Speaker 10: I finished school, I thought I was going to become

1264
01:17:50,120 --> 01:17:52,200
Speaker 10: a teacher. That's probably what you heard in my tech talk.

1265
01:17:53,439 --> 01:17:55,920
Speaker 10: I wanted to become a math teacher, but it was

1266
01:17:56,040 --> 01:17:59,840
Speaker 10: so tough because I feel like math teacher, like I

1267
01:18:00,160 --> 01:18:02,840
Speaker 10: wanted to give But sometimes it's like it's like it's

1268
01:18:02,840 --> 01:18:05,080
Speaker 10: like an extra job. You know, it's like it's not

1269
01:18:05,200 --> 01:18:07,920
Speaker 10: just a job in the classroom, but it's also the

1270
01:18:08,040 --> 01:18:09,440
Speaker 10: job outside the classroom.

1271
01:18:09,680 --> 01:18:10,960
Speaker 1: Did you enjoy being a teacher?

1272
01:18:11,840 --> 01:18:14,200
Speaker 10: I enjoyed it, but I'm not sure if I want

1273
01:18:14,240 --> 01:18:17,320
Speaker 10: that as my as my long term career. So that

1274
01:18:17,560 --> 01:18:21,240
Speaker 10: that's why, you know. I when I saw the chance

1275
01:18:21,680 --> 01:18:26,160
Speaker 10: to apply for the Sheriff's Department for the statistical analysts,

1276
01:18:26,320 --> 01:18:29,280
Speaker 10: so the numbers guy, it's like, okay, why not. You know,

1277
01:18:29,360 --> 01:18:31,280
Speaker 10: that's that's good, that's a good, good time to try.

1278
01:18:31,720 --> 01:18:35,160
Speaker 10: I tried it. I got in. It was pretty cool.

1279
01:18:35,240 --> 01:18:35,439
Speaker 6: You know.

1280
01:18:36,120 --> 01:18:38,880
Speaker 10: I feel like I'm part of the bigger mission to

1281
01:18:39,080 --> 01:18:42,679
Speaker 10: help prevent and reduce the crime. That's really that's nice, nice,

1282
01:18:42,800 --> 01:18:45,080
Speaker 10: nice mission to be part of. I did that for

1283
01:18:45,120 --> 01:18:48,080
Speaker 10: about two years, and then I got promoted to work

1284
01:18:48,080 --> 01:18:50,720
Speaker 10: for public health for about six years, and then I

1285
01:18:50,800 --> 01:18:55,080
Speaker 10: decided to do something a little crazy, so you know,

1286
01:18:55,120 --> 01:18:57,800
Speaker 10: maybe it's time for me to uh get out of

1287
01:18:57,840 --> 01:19:01,320
Speaker 10: my job start my own entertainment business again.

1288
01:19:01,560 --> 01:19:03,639
Speaker 1: I wanted to touch on this before we talk about

1289
01:19:03,680 --> 01:19:06,160
Speaker 1: the entertainment company. You bring this up in your TED

1290
01:19:06,200 --> 01:19:09,080
Speaker 1: talk as well. How the audition kind of followed you

1291
01:19:09,160 --> 01:19:11,880
Speaker 1: into the workplace, Like what was navigating that like when

1292
01:19:11,880 --> 01:19:13,960
Speaker 1: people are like, wait a second, why do I.

1293
01:19:17,360 --> 01:19:20,479
Speaker 10: Was actually very open about it. I decided that being

1294
01:19:20,520 --> 01:19:24,519
Speaker 10: open was the best way forward because once they know

1295
01:19:25,240 --> 01:19:30,280
Speaker 10: the first time my whole story, they will stop asking

1296
01:19:30,360 --> 01:19:34,080
Speaker 10: questions about it eventually. So yeah, I think that sharing

1297
01:19:34,160 --> 01:19:35,519
Speaker 10: everything was the easiest way.

1298
01:19:35,880 --> 01:19:38,920
Speaker 1: And then you want to get back into entertainment. Tell

1299
01:19:38,920 --> 01:19:40,360
Speaker 1: me about that period of time.

1300
01:19:40,760 --> 01:19:44,760
Speaker 10: It was a very very interesting timing because something that

1301
01:19:44,920 --> 01:19:47,920
Speaker 10: another thing that people might not know is that I've

1302
01:19:48,000 --> 01:19:51,719
Speaker 10: been playing and studying poker for many years on the side.

1303
01:19:52,120 --> 01:19:56,840
Speaker 10: It's another one of my psychics. So at the time

1304
01:19:56,880 --> 01:20:00,320
Speaker 10: when I quit my job, the main reason though, it

1305
01:20:00,439 --> 01:20:03,080
Speaker 10: was that I was I was There's something called a cameo.

1306
01:20:03,640 --> 01:20:03,720
Speaker 17: Uh.

1307
01:20:03,800 --> 01:20:07,840
Speaker 10: It's like an app where people could request like a

1308
01:20:07,880 --> 01:20:14,799
Speaker 10: short video for birthday, uh, graduation, motivation, and of course

1309
01:20:14,920 --> 01:20:19,080
Speaker 10: she bangs uh uh. And then I got for some

1310
01:20:19,120 --> 01:20:22,559
Speaker 10: reason within you know, that that year that I chose

1311
01:20:22,600 --> 01:20:24,960
Speaker 10: to quit, you know, but the year before that, I

1312
01:20:25,040 --> 01:20:28,559
Speaker 10: got so many requests, uh, you know, like more than

1313
01:20:28,600 --> 01:20:32,200
Speaker 10: twenty each day. And then the place I'm living at

1314
01:20:32,280 --> 01:20:35,080
Speaker 10: in a l A it's not ideal for doing that

1315
01:20:35,360 --> 01:20:38,439
Speaker 10: because you know, my my my house has read in

1316
01:20:38,560 --> 01:20:41,679
Speaker 10: walls mine and then my neighbors were getting very upset.

1317
01:20:42,160 --> 01:20:44,960
Speaker 10: Uh they were, they would complaining, they were banging the wall.

1318
01:20:45,320 --> 01:20:48,040
Speaker 10: And that's that's why I feel like, Okay, well, you know,

1319
01:20:48,680 --> 01:20:53,200
Speaker 10: between that new business, you know, uh and then my poker,

1320
01:20:54,080 --> 01:20:55,920
Speaker 10: I feel like I could make it. I could make

1321
01:20:55,920 --> 01:20:56,400
Speaker 10: it my own.

1322
01:20:56,800 --> 01:20:58,880
Speaker 1: And is that what you're doing now? Or where are

1323
01:20:58,880 --> 01:20:59,519
Speaker 1: you at now?

1324
01:21:00,080 --> 01:21:03,479
Speaker 10: The first few years when I after I decided to

1325
01:21:03,560 --> 01:21:05,560
Speaker 10: quit my job, I still remember, it was around the

1326
01:21:05,640 --> 01:21:09,120
Speaker 10: twenty twenty twenty, right before the pandemic. It was rough.

1327
01:21:09,680 --> 01:21:11,879
Speaker 10: I moved from l A all the way to Florida

1328
01:21:12,000 --> 01:21:16,160
Speaker 10: because I knew a friend there, you know, because at

1329
01:21:16,160 --> 01:21:18,639
Speaker 10: the time it was hard to find the house where

1330
01:21:18,680 --> 01:21:21,960
Speaker 10: I could do that, the singing the cambo to earn

1331
01:21:22,000 --> 01:21:24,040
Speaker 10: the money, because if I moved to another place I

1332
01:21:24,040 --> 01:21:26,559
Speaker 10: could have the same problem. You not many people could

1333
01:21:26,560 --> 01:21:28,760
Speaker 10: put up with that. But at the place I moved to,

1334
01:21:28,960 --> 01:21:31,599
Speaker 10: it was a big house where the room was very

1335
01:21:31,640 --> 01:21:34,200
Speaker 10: step was pretty far away from the from the from

1336
01:21:34,439 --> 01:21:35,080
Speaker 10: other people.

1337
01:21:35,840 --> 01:21:37,360
Speaker 1: So how long did you stay in Florida? Are you

1338
01:21:37,439 --> 01:21:39,240
Speaker 1: still there? Did you move back to California?

1339
01:21:39,800 --> 01:21:42,080
Speaker 10: Yeah? So I stayed in Florida for about two years.

1340
01:21:42,200 --> 01:21:44,719
Speaker 10: And then and then after I recovered from the COVID,

1341
01:21:44,800 --> 01:21:47,920
Speaker 10: I gradually also started earning some extra money from poker.

1342
01:21:48,640 --> 01:21:50,960
Speaker 10: Everything was good, I earned, I earned really good money,

1343
01:21:50,960 --> 01:21:53,240
Speaker 10: more than my job, you know. Uh. And then and

1344
01:21:53,280 --> 01:21:56,519
Speaker 10: then eventually another friend reached out to me, you know,

1345
01:21:57,000 --> 01:21:59,160
Speaker 10: uh that she said like, maybe, you know, maybe it's

1346
01:21:59,160 --> 01:22:01,280
Speaker 10: time for you to still of Las Vegas, you know,

1347
01:22:02,520 --> 01:22:05,880
Speaker 10: because Las Vegas would be an upgrade from Florida for sure,

1348
01:22:06,600 --> 01:22:09,680
Speaker 10: especially especially from playing for playing poker, and I got

1349
01:22:09,680 --> 01:22:11,599
Speaker 10: a pretty good deal on the house at the time,

1350
01:22:11,920 --> 01:22:14,000
Speaker 10: so it's like, Okay, let let's try, let's let's go

1351
01:22:14,080 --> 01:22:14,400
Speaker 10: for it.

1352
01:22:14,720 --> 01:22:16,360
Speaker 1: And then to Vegas.

1353
01:22:16,560 --> 01:22:18,519
Speaker 10: Yeah yeah, yeah, So in about two years I moved

1354
01:22:18,560 --> 01:22:22,360
Speaker 10: to Vegas and then and then reality started to set in.

1355
01:22:22,680 --> 01:22:25,400
Speaker 10: My entertainment business was not as good as before. The

1356
01:22:25,560 --> 01:22:29,160
Speaker 10: poker competitions a lot harder over there, So I wasn't

1357
01:22:29,160 --> 01:22:29,800
Speaker 10: doing so good.

1358
01:22:29,920 --> 01:22:31,720
Speaker 1: And then did you stay in Vegas or did you

1359
01:22:31,760 --> 01:22:33,240
Speaker 1: go back to California or.

1360
01:22:33,479 --> 01:22:36,000
Speaker 10: At one point I was so I was again desperate.

1361
01:22:36,320 --> 01:22:39,040
Speaker 10: I knew I shouldn't do this, but I somehow, but

1362
01:22:39,080 --> 01:22:40,840
Speaker 10: I was desperate. Maybe I can, I hope I was,

1363
01:22:40,920 --> 01:22:43,880
Speaker 10: I could get lucky. I got into other forms of gambling,

1364
01:22:44,320 --> 01:22:47,040
Speaker 10: and then I and then and I really shot myself

1365
01:22:47,040 --> 01:22:47,479
Speaker 10: on the foot.

1366
01:22:47,880 --> 01:22:50,680
Speaker 1: So it's been very open over the year, you know,

1367
01:22:50,760 --> 01:22:54,080
Speaker 1: like having struggles with gambling and trying to find a

1368
01:22:54,120 --> 01:22:56,920
Speaker 1: healthy way for it to exist within your life. That

1369
01:22:57,120 --> 01:22:59,320
Speaker 1: seems like, I mean, I know that that is such

1370
01:22:59,360 --> 01:23:02,639
Speaker 1: a tricky, key thing to have to work through, especially

1371
01:23:02,640 --> 01:23:04,200
Speaker 1: if you're living in Vegas.

1372
01:23:04,760 --> 01:23:08,240
Speaker 10: Yeah, yeah, like that mental mentally, like like like at

1373
01:23:08,240 --> 01:23:11,800
Speaker 10: the time I was, I was thinking about how to

1374
01:23:12,080 --> 01:23:14,360
Speaker 10: how do I get back to the to the top

1375
01:23:14,640 --> 01:23:17,760
Speaker 10: former glory. But but I realized that that's not a

1376
01:23:17,760 --> 01:23:19,880
Speaker 10: good way, that's not a healthy way to look at it.

1377
01:23:19,920 --> 01:23:23,080
Speaker 10: You know, I already should be grateful for everything I have,

1378
01:23:23,640 --> 01:23:26,519
Speaker 10: so you know why why I want to throw everything away?

1379
01:23:26,800 --> 01:23:29,160
Speaker 10: So that's that's that's so that's that's the thought that

1380
01:23:29,240 --> 01:23:30,799
Speaker 10: really helped me change.

1381
01:23:31,040 --> 01:23:31,400
Speaker 6: Uh uh.

1382
01:23:31,479 --> 01:23:33,920
Speaker 10: And then then I decided, okay, what can I do

1383
01:23:34,000 --> 01:23:35,800
Speaker 10: now that's gonna be better for me? Well, and then

1384
01:23:35,840 --> 01:23:38,519
Speaker 10: I thought, well, you know what, let's help the gambling.

1385
01:23:38,560 --> 01:23:41,360
Speaker 10: Let's put aside you now, let's use my math skills

1386
01:23:41,360 --> 01:23:44,599
Speaker 10: for to do something good right time, right, right timing.

1387
01:23:45,040 --> 01:23:45,120
Speaker 3: Uh.

1388
01:23:45,520 --> 01:23:49,040
Speaker 10: I had another chance to get back to the sheriff's

1389
01:23:49,040 --> 01:23:52,200
Speaker 10: department in l A. And that's why I moved back.

1390
01:23:52,400 --> 01:23:54,599
Speaker 1: Yeah, the sheriff's department.

1391
01:23:55,040 --> 01:23:55,240
Speaker 10: Yeah.

1392
01:23:55,320 --> 01:23:55,799
Speaker 6: Yeah.

1393
01:23:55,880 --> 01:23:58,120
Speaker 1: How are you doing now? How are you feeling these days?

1394
01:23:58,200 --> 01:24:02,479
Speaker 1: You You've come truly full circle in these last twenty years.

1395
01:24:02,920 --> 01:24:07,799
Speaker 10: Yes, for sure, I feel very good. And I'm happily

1396
01:24:07,840 --> 01:24:10,840
Speaker 10: married now finally. Yeah, after the you know the path

1397
01:24:10,920 --> 01:24:13,800
Speaker 10: marriages that didn't quite walk out either. So it's a

1398
01:24:13,800 --> 01:24:17,800
Speaker 10: long like you said, full circle, you know. Now Now

1399
01:24:18,120 --> 01:24:20,320
Speaker 10: I still do my entertainment. I still do it on

1400
01:24:20,360 --> 01:24:23,640
Speaker 10: the side a psychic. It's all good. And then I

1401
01:24:24,400 --> 01:24:28,519
Speaker 10: also started a new business, you know, helping helping people

1402
01:24:28,560 --> 01:24:31,840
Speaker 10: with insurance. And the primary, you know, motivation for me

1403
01:24:32,400 --> 01:24:34,200
Speaker 10: is that I want to know what I'm paying my

1404
01:24:34,240 --> 01:24:34,720
Speaker 10: money for.

1405
01:24:35,439 --> 01:24:35,479
Speaker 3: This.

1406
01:24:35,920 --> 01:24:38,800
Speaker 10: It's America, you know, everybody needs to where is my

1407
01:24:38,840 --> 01:24:41,439
Speaker 10: money going? Is this? Why am I what am I

1408
01:24:41,479 --> 01:24:42,040
Speaker 10: paying for?

1409
01:24:42,360 --> 01:24:47,320
Speaker 1: Yeah? Looking back on twenty years ago, two different questions.

1410
01:24:47,680 --> 01:24:50,360
Speaker 1: Do you have any regrets about two thousand and four

1411
01:24:50,760 --> 01:24:54,879
Speaker 1: and how has like how you view that period changed

1412
01:24:54,960 --> 01:24:55,639
Speaker 1: over time?

1413
01:24:56,120 --> 01:25:00,200
Speaker 10: No regrets at all, because in life, could you want

1414
01:25:00,200 --> 01:25:04,160
Speaker 10: to make the best decision based on the information you

1415
01:25:04,360 --> 01:25:08,080
Speaker 10: know at the time, not later, not before, at the present.

1416
01:25:08,800 --> 01:25:12,160
Speaker 10: At that time, I got more than what I could past,

1417
01:25:12,560 --> 01:25:15,840
Speaker 10: I could ask for already. I'm very grateful for the experience.

1418
01:25:16,160 --> 01:25:18,960
Speaker 10: I feel that experience will will you know it gives

1419
01:25:18,960 --> 01:25:23,439
Speaker 10: me a unique healthy perspective. You know how to handle

1420
01:25:23,960 --> 01:25:27,559
Speaker 10: adversity no matter what happens, and no matter what happens,

1421
01:25:27,640 --> 01:25:29,519
Speaker 10: I feel like I can get back up.

1422
01:25:29,720 --> 01:25:31,080
Speaker 1: Looking back at it, It's like the way you were

1423
01:25:31,160 --> 01:25:34,360
Speaker 1: treated by the media at different points, It just like

1424
01:25:34,760 --> 01:25:37,320
Speaker 1: makes my fist ball up. You're just like you've managed

1425
01:25:37,360 --> 01:25:40,880
Speaker 1: everything so beautifully. You've always been yourself, and I just

1426
01:25:41,160 --> 01:25:43,080
Speaker 1: it was such a pleasure to talk to you.

1427
01:25:43,760 --> 01:25:45,880
Speaker 10: If you want to find out what I'm up to,

1428
01:25:46,360 --> 01:25:49,200
Speaker 10: you can find me on Instagram and LinkedIn.

1429
01:25:49,560 --> 01:25:52,000
Speaker 1: William hun thank you so much for joining me. This

1430
01:25:52,160 --> 01:25:52,880
Speaker 1: was so much fun.

1431
01:25:53,479 --> 01:25:54,040
Speaker 10: You're welcome.

1432
01:25:54,360 --> 01:25:56,880
Speaker 1: Thank you so much to William hun for his time

1433
01:25:57,240 --> 01:26:01,559
Speaker 1: and his openness. I'm incredibly grateful and remain a lifelong fan.

1434
01:26:01,920 --> 01:26:03,840
Speaker 1: You can check out what he's up to and all

1435
01:26:03,880 --> 01:26:06,400
Speaker 1: of his social media at the links in the description.

1436
01:26:07,120 --> 01:26:11,120
Speaker 1: What I really admire about William is his gentleness. His

1437
01:26:11,320 --> 01:26:15,160
Speaker 1: essence has remained consistent through the years, even as the

1438
01:26:15,200 --> 01:26:18,799
Speaker 1: world judged and built and destroyed all of these different

1439
01:26:18,880 --> 01:26:22,559
Speaker 1: narratives around him. Here he is in March two thousand

1440
01:26:22,560 --> 01:26:25,240
Speaker 1: and four, just weeks after becoming famous.

1441
01:26:25,560 --> 01:26:27,320
Speaker 3: Are you are you good at the civil engineering?

1442
01:26:28,080 --> 01:26:31,599
Speaker 10: I'm I'm struggling as well with civil engineering. I'm struggling

1443
01:26:31,680 --> 01:26:33,840
Speaker 10: pretty much most of the things I do in my life.

1444
01:26:34,080 --> 01:26:38,360
Speaker 10: But no, it's no you got Why you need to,

1445
01:26:38,479 --> 01:26:40,960
Speaker 10: why you need to understan all of you to understand,

1446
01:26:41,400 --> 01:26:44,240
Speaker 10: is that everybody goes through struggles to succeed.

1447
01:26:44,680 --> 01:26:48,599
Speaker 1: Yes, absolute, this was a kid, a twenty one year old,

1448
01:26:48,720 --> 01:26:51,960
Speaker 1: thrust into the spotlight and trying to keep things light.

1449
01:26:52,720 --> 01:26:56,920
Speaker 1: But there were forces moving against William from the jump.

1450
01:26:57,760 --> 01:27:01,280
Speaker 1: His story is singular, and while he doesn't resonate with

1451
01:27:01,320 --> 01:27:04,040
Speaker 1: a lot of the narratives pushed onto him. As we

1452
01:27:04,160 --> 01:27:07,559
Speaker 1: talked about in our interview anti Asian racism, as well

1453
01:27:07,600 --> 01:27:12,200
Speaker 1: as the general brutality of American reality TV. I do

1454
01:27:12,280 --> 01:27:16,000
Speaker 1: think they're worth exploring with people who did resonate with

1455
01:27:16,080 --> 01:27:20,599
Speaker 1: those narratives. The two thousands was a uniquely fucked time

1456
01:27:20,760 --> 01:27:24,759
Speaker 1: for mask off discrimination and exploitation in the public sphere,

1457
01:27:25,240 --> 01:27:27,200
Speaker 1: and I wanted to talk to people who have either

1458
01:27:27,360 --> 01:27:30,680
Speaker 1: worked in that space or lived through it. And so

1459
01:27:31,520 --> 01:27:34,920
Speaker 1: in part two of our William Hung episode, we'll be

1460
01:27:35,040 --> 01:27:39,759
Speaker 1: talking to Nancy Wang Yuan and og reality TV editor

1461
01:27:39,960 --> 01:27:44,760
Speaker 1: and fan of this very show, Steve Flack. That's next

1462
01:27:44,800 --> 01:27:48,880
Speaker 1: week on sixteenth minute, and for your moment of fun,

1463
01:27:49,320 --> 01:27:54,200
Speaker 1: the full the necessary. No sex allowed by.

1464
01:27:55,280 --> 01:28:00,479
Speaker 12: I'm sitting around modern mobs. Something wrong. I don't know

1465
01:28:00,520 --> 01:28:04,400
Speaker 12: what it is. Margareol comes around. She's an upus wretch.

1466
01:28:04,680 --> 01:28:07,839
Speaker 12: She starts playing with me or she wants is sex,

1467
01:28:08,160 --> 01:28:11,000
Speaker 12: but take it from me. Hear what I say.

1468
01:28:11,520 --> 01:28:14,280
Speaker 4: I don't need that. There's a better way.

1469
01:28:14,520 --> 01:28:18,160
Speaker 12: So I promise her love as she springs a long course.

1470
01:28:18,240 --> 01:28:26,360
Speaker 12: Sex is weak and love is strong. No sex loud.

1471
01:28:27,080 --> 01:28:29,920
Speaker 12: I don't want to be part of your crowd.

1472
01:28:30,520 --> 01:28:34,120
Speaker 6: No sex so loud, and if.

1473
01:28:34,000 --> 01:28:36,599
Speaker 4: You don't like it, get out of town.

1474
01:28:37,439 --> 01:28:38,400
Speaker 12: I do the second verse.

1475
01:28:38,720 --> 01:28:39,080
Speaker 6: Okay.

1476
01:28:43,200 --> 01:28:46,760
Speaker 1: Sixteenth minute is a production of Cool Zone Media and Iheartradia.

1477
01:28:47,320 --> 01:28:50,599
Speaker 16: It is written, posted, and produced by me Janie Leftis.

1478
01:28:50,840 --> 01:28:53,879
Speaker 16: Our executive producers are Sophie Lickterman and Robert Evans.

1479
01:28:54,120 --> 01:28:58,200
Speaker 1: The Amazing Ian Johnson is our supervising producer and our editor.

1480
01:28:58,800 --> 01:29:02,600
Speaker 1: Our theme song is bym sat thirteen. Voice acting is

1481
01:29:02,640 --> 01:29:04,559
Speaker 1: from Grant Crater and Pet.

1482
01:29:04,640 --> 01:29:07,519
Speaker 16: Shout outs to our dog producer Anderson, my cats Flee

1483
01:29:07,560 --> 01:29:10,120
Speaker 16: and Casper, and my pet rock Bird, who will outlive

1484
01:29:10,200 --> 01:29:10,479
Speaker 16: us all.

1485
01:29:10,920 --> 01:29:12,280
Speaker 1: Bye.