Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Hi, I'm Ryan Seacrest and I'm Brian Dunkleman.
Speaker 3: And this is the Kodak Theater in Hollywood, home of
Speaker 3: the Academy Awards and possibly the most televised theater in
Speaker 3: the world. Three months from now, live on this very stage,
Speaker 3: and as yet unknown talent will be launched into superstardom.
Speaker 3: We don't know who that is yet. Right now, they
Speaker 3: could be parking cars or even waiting on tables.
Speaker 4: Who knows.
Speaker 3: What we do know is by the end of the summer,
Speaker 3: that person's life will change forever because you at home
Speaker 3: decide who will become the next American Idol.
Speaker 1: It's June eleventh, two thousand and two, and a new
Speaker 1: show called American Idol has just debuted on Fox. It
Speaker 1: was competing with some of the biggest shows of the day,
Speaker 1: although scripted stuff was in reruns by the summer to
Speaker 1: set the scene. Frazier, Scrubs, Girlfriends, Buffy, Small Bill, Gilmore Girls,
Speaker 1: on and on. If you were there, you know, if
Speaker 1: you don't, you weren't missing out on as much as
Speaker 1: millennials tell you you were. American Idol's main competition that
Speaker 1: was airing a new episode was a rival reality show
Speaker 1: on ABC called The Mole.
Speaker 5: Ten strangers playing from up to one million dollars, among them,
Speaker 5: a saboteur, a trader, the Mole, the winner, the one
Speaker 5: who answers the question who is the Mole?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 1: Is that Anderson Cooper pre CNN. Yes it is And
Speaker 1: one of the funniest things to me in the world
Speaker 1: is that Anderson Cooper. Iconic NEPO Baby says that nine
Speaker 1: to eleven woke him up and got him to return
Speaker 1: to Centrist News instead of hosting The Mole and The
Speaker 1: Mole Season one Unbeatable reality TV. You can watch it
Speaker 1: online for free anyways. American Idols path to being on
Speaker 1: American primetime TV was not smooth. The format was cribbed
Speaker 1: from popular talent shows from overseas like Pop Idol in
Speaker 1: the UK and Pop Stars in New Zealand, and the
Speaker 1: guys who made these shows had a big hand in
Speaker 1: bringing it to the US. Producers Simon Fuller and Nigel
Speaker 1: Lithgow brought it to the States, but Fox Network owner
Speaker 1: and feminist icon Rupert Murdoch wasn't sure that this would
Speaker 1: play in the US, and the show only made it
Speaker 1: onto the network because his daughter Elizabeth had seen Pop
Speaker 1: Idol in the UK and thought that it would work
Speaker 1: in America, and boy did it work. American Idol won
Speaker 1: the night in ratings when it debuted nine point nine
Speaker 1: viewers tuned in to the Moles six point nine and
Speaker 1: a Fraser reruns seven point seven million. Excellent showing from
Speaker 1: Fraser heads there all over my face. The format of
Speaker 1: the show would be tweaked many times in the years
Speaker 1: to come. One of the most major examples is that
Speaker 1: Ryan Seacrest went on to host Idol for over twenty
Speaker 1: years and Brian Dunkleman quit after a season. Whoops. Pop
Speaker 1: Idol had four judges, but American Idol only managed to
Speaker 1: get three to commit in time for the show to
Speaker 1: start taping, and so.
Speaker 3: We have first up Grammy Award winner Randy Jackson.
Speaker 6: I think the main thing really for me is uniqueness,
Speaker 6: having a different, unique style of different sounding voice, and
Speaker 6: also just having you know, phenomenal talent.
Speaker 3: Singer, songwriter, dancer, choreographer and pop diva legend all Abdul.
Speaker 7: Would you think my perspective would be absolutely different than
Speaker 7: the other two judges because I'm an artist.
Speaker 3: And the acid tongue star of pop idol in the UK,
Speaker 3: Simon Cown.
Speaker 8: We are going to tell people who cannot sing and
Speaker 8: who have no talent that they have no talent and
Speaker 8: that never makes you popular. We are going to show
Speaker 8: the audition process as it really is because shows in
Speaker 8: the past have not shown the brutality of auditions.
Speaker 9: Auditions are horrible places to.
Speaker 8: Go and I'm warning you now you are about to
Speaker 8: enter the audition from.
Speaker 1: Hell, whether you were a reviewer or not. Randy Jackson,
Speaker 1: Paula Abdull, and Simon Cowell are one of the most
Speaker 1: iconic millennial pop culture trios ever. They were perfectly calibrated
Speaker 1: for the early two thousands. Paula was the nice one,
Speaker 1: Randy was the constructive one, and Simon was evil and
Speaker 1: sometimes funny. He was evil, and because he was evil,
Speaker 1: he had a lot of success. The most significant example
Speaker 1: is less than a decade later, he was one of
Speaker 1: the inventors of One Direction. Do you understand the level
Speaker 1: of evil that requires? Simon Cowell was the boy conjurer,
Speaker 1: and his criticism of singers he thought were bad weren't
Speaker 1: just cutting the cold, get extremely personal and were often
Speaker 1: what people were talking about the next day, even more
Speaker 1: so than the performances themselves.
Speaker 8: Yes, you have personality, but dogs have personality.
Speaker 9: The audition of him being on the shoe was horrible.
Speaker 1: Here's how the show worked. When it aired, Contestants between
Speaker 1: sixteen and twenty four years old were encouraged to come
Speaker 1: out and audition in droves across the country. As the
Speaker 1: production started to weave through the most talented contestants, or,
Speaker 1: as would become clear, the contestants that would play the
Speaker 1: best on TV. You'll see what I mean and immediately,
Speaker 1: American Idol auditions were huge. Thousands of contestants would line
Speaker 1: up outside stadiums across the country. The record ended up
Speaker 1: being twenty thousand people in Philadelphia in two thousand and seven,
Speaker 1: and hopefuls would be whittled away round after round, and
Speaker 1: only around one hundred and fifty people would actually make
Speaker 1: it to the judges table. From here, good singers are
Speaker 1: pushed to something called Hollywood Week. Judges would continue to
Speaker 1: eliminate contestants through the semifinals, at which point the decision
Speaker 1: would be turned over to the public. Voting was done
Speaker 1: first by calling a telephone number, then you could text
Speaker 1: a vote starting in the second season, and you couldn't
Speaker 1: vote online until twenty ten, and finally at the end
Speaker 1: of the season a winner was announced in a gigantic
Speaker 1: finale at the Dolby Theater in la And in those
Speaker 1: early seasons, the prize was massive, a major record deal
Speaker 1: with as many as six albums, attached management from Idols
Speaker 1: in house representatives, and a two hundred and fifty thousand
Speaker 1: dollars advance. As the show grew less popular, the prizes
Speaker 1: dwindled down to a potential single and closer to sixty
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. If you were around for the early Idol years,
Speaker 1: you really couldn't avoid it, and the show was turning
Speaker 1: out genuine stars. Maybe this is me being nine coming out,
Speaker 1: but the thrill of seeing Kelly Clarkson demolish one Justin Guarini.
Speaker 3: The winner of American Idol two thousand and two is.
Speaker 1: Kelly plugs incredible and she immediately became one of the
Speaker 1: biggest pop stars in the world. And sure, that nearly
Speaker 1: ten million viewership for the premiere was impressive, but the
Speaker 1: show gained serious steam throughout that first season. When Kelly
Speaker 1: Clarkson won, over twenty two million people were watching, and
Speaker 1: that just doesn't happen anymore on Network TV, and thankfully
Speaker 1: Kelly Clarkson is heure with us to this day. We
Speaker 1: love her. She's a legend. This success continued for American
Speaker 1: Idol into its second season, which featured the very wholesome
Speaker 1: rivalry between Ruben Stutdared and Clay Aiken member them.
Speaker 3: The winner of American Idol two thousand and three is
Speaker 3: Ruben Stutner.
Speaker 1: Ruben Studdard eventually won, but they both went on to
Speaker 1: find mild success separately, but in a twist that I love,
Speaker 1: they found even more success when they continued working together.
Speaker 1: Since they were on American Idol, Ruben and Clay have
Speaker 1: done a Christmas show together on Broadway. Hi, I'm Ruben
Speaker 1: Studdard and he's the person that lost to Ruben Starter
Speaker 1: and we're talking about Ruben and Clay's first annual Christmas
Speaker 1: Carol Family Fun Pageants Spectacular Reunion Show. I mean, you
Speaker 1: gotta love them. The two tour together for the twenty
Speaker 1: year anniversary of their original competition on Idol and recently
Speaker 1: appeared on the Masks as two Beats b ee Ts
Speaker 1: like the Vegetable. Twenty years after they met, They appeared
Speaker 1: as the Vegetable beats on the masked singer singing a
Speaker 1: Michael Bublay cover. If you don't believe me, it sounds beautiful.
Speaker 10: Coming bad.
Speaker 1: But I can't stress enough they are dressed as glamorous
Speaker 1: root vegetables. But when Ruben and Clay were competing on
Speaker 1: Idol back in two thousand and three, this was even
Speaker 1: bigger than Kelly Clarkson's moment. Thirty eight million people watched
Speaker 1: the finale that year when Ruben stuttered one. That's twice
Speaker 1: as many people who watched the Oscars this past year.
Speaker 1: American Idol was a star making vehicle. The early winners
Speaker 1: and runners up became household names, and many had real
Speaker 1: staying power. In case you forgot names like Jennifer Hudson,
Speaker 1: Carrie Underwood, Jordan Sparks, Adam Lambert, David Archiletta, and Catherine
Speaker 1: McPhee were all Idle contestants. And it's not hard to
Speaker 1: understand why American Idol was such a major force. We
Speaker 1: can talk all day about how reality TV was really
Speaker 1: starting to boom around this time, but I think the
Speaker 1: simplest explanation is that this show literally narrativized the American dream.
Speaker 1: Most of these contestants were young people from the middle
Speaker 1: of nowhere, and the show really leaned into that. In
Speaker 1: classic reality TV fashion, the most promising contestants would be
Speaker 1: framed adoringly as talented kids with big dreams, like it's
Speaker 1: impossible to not root for these people based on how
Speaker 1: the show frames them. Hello Kelly, Hello, I'm a big
Speaker 1: fan of you. By the way, I just turned twenty
Speaker 1: the same girl day birthday comings And by the third
Speaker 1: season of American Idol, audiences were well aware that the
Speaker 1: show was not a fluke. But as I recall, there
Speaker 1: was more than one type of American Idol viewer. There
Speaker 1: were the people who watched every single episode and obsessively
Speaker 1: called and texted in their votes for their favorite people
Speaker 1: in the later rounds. And there were people who were
Speaker 1: mainly in to watch the auditions. I was one of those.
Speaker 1: And if you don't watch for the good auditions, and
Speaker 1: you won't, you were watching for the terrible auditions. Weirdly,
Speaker 1: we talked about this phenomenon recently on sixteenth Minute. People
Speaker 1: who first experienced their fifteen minutes of fame after being
Speaker 1: shown in some public freak show styles setting, and that
Speaker 1: is kind of what we're looking at here people who
Speaker 1: were not good, and it was unclear in the way
Speaker 1: American Idol framed them if they knew they weren't good.
Speaker 1: But here they are being paraded on national television so
Speaker 1: that the famous three judges can confirm that they are
Speaker 1: indeed not very good. Oh good.
Speaker 4: By that does.
Speaker 1: These kinds of contestants range from people who actually do
Speaker 1: think they are very talented singers to people who just
Speaker 1: kind of seem to want to be on TV for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, whether it's personal gain or just attention. And
Speaker 1: as we now know, this is a kind of person
Speaker 1: someone who would want to appear on as many reality
Speaker 1: TV shows as possible. But at the time this wasn't
Speaker 1: quite as understood, so the contestants on Idol who were
Speaker 1: bad were framed as completely delusional.
Speaker 7: I want to be the next American Idol, and I
Speaker 7: want to make it to Hollywood, and it's been my
Speaker 7: all time dream for a long time to become a big,
Speaker 7: famous singer performer, and this is just one way to
Speaker 7: do it if I make it.
Speaker 1: Thank you an elementary school Jamie was not alone in
Speaker 1: Reveling and a Bad audition. They were so popular that
Speaker 1: Fox would air entire specials around them. During season one,
Speaker 1: they aired something called The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,
Speaker 1: a whole special about auditions, and while a bad audition
Speaker 1: would occasionally make for conversation at the water cooler, something
Speaker 1: that allegedly happened, it wasn't until season three of Idle that,
Speaker 1: at least for a time, one bad audition overshadowed the
Speaker 1: eventual winner. And the winner that season is incredible and
Speaker 1: thankfully is successful to this day. It was Fantasia Burrino,
Speaker 1: and she was nominated for an oscar last year. But
Speaker 1: for a time, the most famous person to be on
Speaker 1: Idol in two thousand and four was someone who never
Speaker 1: made it to Hollywood Week. And you can tell how
Speaker 1: you're supposed to feel about the audition based on how
Speaker 1: this contestant's introduction is edited. For comparison, here is how
Speaker 1: we meet eventual winner Fantasia.
Speaker 2: Even nineteen year old Fantasia Burrino.
Speaker 1: Can predict how the judges will react. I predict that
Speaker 1: Randy's going to like way years Paula.
Speaker 11: I think she's gonna like, but.
Speaker 7: I think I'm gonna have a little trouble out of common.
Speaker 1: But I'm ready for Simon A ready for Simon. And
Speaker 1: here is how we meet the subject of this week's
Speaker 1: sixteenth minute.
Speaker 2: The producer's cast and crew to express their gratitude to
Speaker 2: engineering student William Hung for showing up and shaking his
Speaker 2: bonbon William, Yes.
Speaker 4: Talk to me, tell me your name. You blow me off.
Speaker 10: Like it's all the same you, lady person, I'm taking
Speaker 10: away like your bomb.
Speaker 4: Yeah, babe bee. She begs, she begs, Oh baby, she moves.
Speaker 1: She moves, William Hung. Your sixteenth minute starts now. Welcome
Speaker 1: to sixteenth Minute, the podcast where we take a look
Speaker 1: at the Internet's main characters and learn how their moment
Speaker 1: affected them and what it says about us and the Internet.
Speaker 1: And this week we're talking about someone I consider to
Speaker 1: be the patron saints of main characters, William Hung and
Speaker 1: just a headsap. This is going to be a two
Speaker 1: part episode because there is a lot going on in
Speaker 1: this story. Not only does it take place at a
Speaker 1: time where the Internet was still catching on in terms
Speaker 1: of being a part of shaping our minds and television,
Speaker 1: but it happened over two decas gades ago and intersects
Speaker 1: with how turn of the century reality TV framed people.
Speaker 1: Particularly in this case Asian Americans and immigrants. The she
Speaker 1: Bangs moment lives on in infamy, but I want to
Speaker 1: take special attention towards that issue, specifically in the second
Speaker 1: part of this episode, to examine where it fell in
Speaker 1: the history of cruelty and antipathy towards Asian men in
Speaker 1: Western media. But for all intents and purposes, the subject
Speaker 1: of this story, William Hung himself, rejects a lot of
Speaker 1: the popular narratives around his legacy. So for part one
Speaker 1: of this episode, I'm going to tell you the story
Speaker 1: of William Hung as it rolled out in real time,
Speaker 1: and then we'll chat and in next week in part two,
Speaker 1: we'll take a look at some of these narratives, ones
Speaker 1: that intersect with anti Asian racism and how American reality
Speaker 1: TV can be uniquely debaucherous. And this story is a
Speaker 1: real throwback. So buckle in and come with me if
Speaker 1: you dare to two thousand and four. Ooh, this year
Speaker 1: was formative for me. George W. Bush became president again
Speaker 1: and didn't even need to lie about it this time.
Speaker 1: A movie I consider critical to my personality Joel Schumacher's
Speaker 1: Phantom of the Opera starring Gerard Butler as the phantom
Speaker 1: in the actual worst vocal Performance of two thousand and
Speaker 1: four comes out.
Speaker 10: Stood two.
Speaker 1: And William Hung becomes the most famous American Idol contestant
Speaker 1: of all time for a quote unquote bad audition at
Speaker 1: the beginning of the summer, just as school was getting out,
Speaker 1: and our relationship to the Internet was very particular at
Speaker 1: this time. To set the scene, this is a year
Speaker 1: where MySpace was the most popular social media site. It
Speaker 1: was the year that Facebook launched in a strange Zuckerbergian
Speaker 1: horny experiment. It was before YouTube even existed. Blogs and
Speaker 1: message boards are the norm. Blogger and Friendster and Mozilla,
Speaker 1: Firefox and Confessions by Usher are playing at a dance.
Speaker 1: The top shows around Idle on TV where CSI lost,
Speaker 1: Desperate Housewives Survivor, and Everybody Loves Raymond, and Reality TV
Speaker 1: specifically was having a huge moment. What constitutes reality TV
Speaker 1: is pretty nebulous, but it has been around in some
Speaker 1: form since TV has existed, beginning with candid Camera coming
Speaker 1: from radio to TV in the late nineteen forties, then
Speaker 1: giving way to early dating shows like The Dating Game.
Speaker 1: In the sixties, televised talent shows became more popular in
Speaker 1: the eighties, with That's Incredible debuting on ABC in the
Speaker 1: eighties and Cops, the most sinister reality show of all time,
Speaker 1: starting up in nineteen eighty nine. But I think most
Speaker 1: people consider the start of contemporary reality shows with MTV's
Speaker 1: The Real World in nineteen ninety two. Then in the
Speaker 1: late nineties into the early two thousands, the debaucherous contest
Speaker 1: based shows began to take off. Survivors started in two thousand,
Speaker 1: then Big Brother, then Fear Factor and on and on.
Speaker 1: The Bachelor premiered less than three months before American Idol,
Speaker 1: and this was just in the US. Again. Idyl was
Speaker 1: a direct ripoff of two different international talent shows, and
Speaker 1: it kind of scratched the itch of a wide range
Speaker 1: of genres. It had the exploitative, luring character study of
Speaker 1: everyday people as in Survivor, while also having the pop
Speaker 1: of an old school star search setup. And yes, while
Speaker 1: it took Idle creator Simon Fuller a little bit of
Speaker 1: pixie dust to sell Fox on the value of the show,
Speaker 1: it wasn't a shock that it did well. It was
Speaker 1: literally cooked in a lab to do well. Here's some
Speaker 1: initial reception of the show in the New York Daily News.
Speaker 1: Two days after the.
Speaker 11: Premiere, Fox's music talent search series American Idol is looking
Speaker 11: like the first new hit of the summer. American Idol
Speaker 11: also demonstrates the unpredictability of summer reality shows. Several weeks ago,
Speaker 11: Fox introduced Looking for Love Bachelorettes in Alaska, in which
Speaker 11: five women will select a husband from fifty eligible men,
Speaker 11: but audiences haven't bothered to watch.
Speaker 1: And not for nothing. I would have watched that shit pronto,
Speaker 1: put it in a syringe for Jamie. But you get
Speaker 1: the idea. American Idol blew up at a time where
Speaker 1: reality TV was just becoming a fixture of American life.
Speaker 1: But how do we get from here? To William Hung
Speaker 1: nearly two years after the show's debut. Well, here's what
Speaker 1: you need to know about William, and I'll let him
Speaker 1: expand in our interview. William was born in Hong Kong
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty two and then moved to the La
Speaker 1: area Van Nis to my local heads with his family
Speaker 1: when he was eleven. This is where he spent his
Speaker 1: adolescence and he enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley
Speaker 1: to study civil engineering. And it's here in the early
Speaker 1: two thousands, that William learns that American Idol is holding
Speaker 1: auditions in nearby San Francisco in September two thousand and three,
Speaker 1: when he's twenty years old. I'll let him tell the
Speaker 1: story of auditioning in more detail, but it boils down
Speaker 1: to this. William had a good sense of humor about himself.
Speaker 1: He enjoyed pop music, and he was familiar with American
Speaker 1: Idol because everyone was. And so he auditions. He gets
Speaker 1: through the general round, he gets through the producer, and
Speaker 1: he keeps on getting through until he's told on the
Speaker 1: second day of auditioning that he will be presented to
Speaker 1: Randy Simon and Paula themselves. The gods have agreed to
Speaker 1: meet with him, but before we get to the audition itself.
Speaker 1: A lot of people I spoke to about this episode
Speaker 1: were kind of surprised at how early William Hung became
Speaker 1: a sensation in American Idol's run, and I can't help
Speaker 1: but agree. There are only a few other contestants who
Speaker 1: I remembered, but no one like William. In fact, the
Speaker 1: only other two contestants I remembered clearly as having bad
Speaker 1: auditions were from two thousand and eight. In twenty ten,
Speaker 1: first pants on the ground.
Speaker 4: Pants on a prayer, pants on a prayer, looking like
Speaker 4: a fool with your pants on.
Speaker 1: The prayer, and especially no sex allowed.
Speaker 12: So I promise her love as she springs along cor
Speaker 12: set This week, I love it straw, no sex loud.
Speaker 10: I don't want to be part of your crowd.
Speaker 1: And you can see from these examples alone, neither of
Speaker 1: these guys are good singers. But that's not exactly the point,
Speaker 1: is it. There's plenty of bad singers that audition for shows.
Speaker 1: These people are good TV and lean into, in some
Speaker 1: cases religious and racialized tropes that Americans would be familiar with,
Speaker 1: and do not challenge them whatsoever. But that's not because
Speaker 1: the contestants embody these fictional tropes. It's because that's how
Speaker 1: they're framed. And it's here that I want to take
Speaker 1: you on a divergent journey, a tale of two auditions,
Speaker 1: if you will, because when William Hung's audition airs, he
Speaker 1: becomes an overnight star, one of the earliest people to
Speaker 1: straddle the worlds of traditional media and word of mouth
Speaker 1: and the power of the Internet. And this reaction and
Speaker 1: legacy has a lot to do with William himself, but
Speaker 1: also has to do with how we're conditioned to see
Speaker 1: him based on how the show frames him. So here
Speaker 1: is past one, the aired audition. We're gonna fast forward
Speaker 1: to singing because you know what it sounds like.
Speaker 10: But we have found the next key. My name is Ryan.
Speaker 4: Oh, nice to me too, Nice to see you, buddy.
Speaker 10: Let me tell you what I'm gonna sing. I'm thinking
Speaker 10: Ricky Martin. She bangs, bangs.
Speaker 4: Yes, it's a good song.
Speaker 10: So but so it's either I really do well by
Speaker 10: lighting up the stage right, or I don't.
Speaker 2: The producers, cast and crew would like to express their
Speaker 2: gratitude to engineering student William Hung for showing up and
Speaker 2: shaking his bond.
Speaker 6: Bond.
Speaker 4: Yes, talk to me, tell me your name. You've blow
Speaker 4: me off like it's all the same and wasted by
Speaker 4: the way.
Speaker 9: You can't sing, you can't dance, So what do you
Speaker 9: wanted to say?
Speaker 10: Hey, you know I have no professional training of singing.
Speaker 4: No, we didn't believe it either.
Speaker 1: No, this surprise of the century, This whole segment is
Speaker 1: a little over a minute. We meet William, we learn
Speaker 1: he's an engineering student, and we see him bomb. Paula
Speaker 1: does an awkward, encouraging dance, and Randy covers his face
Speaker 1: with a napkin to hide the fact that he's laughing.
Speaker 1: Behind William the faces of Ruben Stuttard and Kelly Clarkson
Speaker 1: loom and if you've seen the audition, and I know
Speaker 1: you have, William is dancing kind of awkwardly along with
Speaker 1: the music before he stopped by Simon and then he
Speaker 1: is summarily rejected by the Gods. And that's the clip.
Speaker 1: But that's a lot to happen in the space of
Speaker 1: a minute, and it speaks to the economical way that
Speaker 1: American Idol editors and producers condensed ten thousand auditions into
Speaker 1: a single episode of television to get a public reaction.
Speaker 1: And boy was there a public reaction. But before we
Speaker 1: get there and forge ahead into William's career, I want
Speaker 1: to bring you to that second path the one where
Speaker 1: Williams audition wasn't compressed in the seventy seconds and gives
Speaker 1: far more insight into why William has come to audition
Speaker 1: in the first place. So here's pathway too, a segment
Speaker 1: from the five minute cut of William's audition.
Speaker 10: I grew up in Los Angeles, California. I was originally
Speaker 10: born from Hong Kong. So I've been here the United
Speaker 10: States for ten years and I was currently studying at
Speaker 10: UC Berkeley right now. It's kind of odd, like why
Speaker 10: I chose to even audition the first place, because my
Speaker 10: major is simple engineering. This is not totally not related
Speaker 10: to music, but I really like music. I want to
Speaker 10: make music my living.
Speaker 1: He expands a little more in the preamble with the.
Speaker 9: Judges, William, why are you here?
Speaker 10: I'm here to sing to America, to sing of America? Okay,
Speaker 10: all right, I'm here for for the Trinity to sing
Speaker 10: to America.
Speaker 1: Because you think you could be the.
Speaker 4: Next American idol.
Speaker 10: Absolutely, because I'm singing from my heart. I might not
Speaker 10: be the best singer around the world, but I know
Speaker 10: that I'm singing from my heart, and I put every
Speaker 10: bit of energy into it.
Speaker 9: Really.
Speaker 10: Yes, what's name?
Speaker 4: H U n G?
Speaker 1: Yes? Do you have brothers and sisters?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 10: I don't. I'm the only child, the only child. Yes.
Speaker 10: Do your parents tell you you have a great voice?
Speaker 4: No, they don't realize.
Speaker 1: Actually they don't realize it.
Speaker 10: No. No, because my when I was young, my parents
Speaker 10: like to sing karaoke. I was there with them and
Speaker 10: sing with them as as a hobby.
Speaker 1: And what do they do when you sing with them?
Speaker 10: What do I do?
Speaker 1: What did they do?
Speaker 4: What did they do?
Speaker 10: Why I sing with them? They thought I'm okay, they die,
Speaker 10: They thought I have I have some I have a
Speaker 10: chance of, you know, making it to the next level.
Speaker 1: And again there's a lot more information you get here.
Speaker 1: He acknowledges he's not the best singer. And look, why
Speaker 1: is he here if he knows that? The age old
Speaker 1: question of reality TV returns and you get more from
Speaker 1: the judges when William finishes, and Simon Cowell really turns
Speaker 1: the knife as you might.
Speaker 8: Expect, William, it's one of actually the worst auditions we've
Speaker 8: had this year, if I'm being honest, seriously, I mean
Speaker 8: everything about it was grotesque.
Speaker 10: Oh stop it grotesque. It was stop it.
Speaker 9: You can't sing, you can't dance. So what do you
Speaker 9: What do you want me to say?
Speaker 10: I already gave my best and I have no regrets
Speaker 10: at all.
Speaker 9: Good for you, that's good.
Speaker 10: That's good. That's good.
Speaker 1: That's the best attitude. Yeah, all right, soy, yes or no? No, William,
Speaker 1: you know you're not good enough for this dude, But
Speaker 1: at least you came here, you had a good time,
Speaker 1: You had fun, right.
Speaker 10: Yes, did you think?
Speaker 1: And we had fun watching it? Okay, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for coming down.
Speaker 9: William, go and do some homework.
Speaker 1: Ultimately, I think this longer cut makes the judges seem
Speaker 1: even crueler. Cowl's saying grotesque about William in particular, something
Speaker 1: that Randy and Paula to people with more humanity who
Speaker 1: happen to be people of color, immediately protest to. And
Speaker 1: this clip further asked the question of how William feels
Speaker 1: about his own ability. In one breath, he says he
Speaker 1: knows he isn't great, and the next he says he
Speaker 1: knows he can make a living as a singer and
Speaker 1: it's his dream. But it's this moment.
Speaker 9: You can't sing, you can't dance, So what do you
Speaker 9: mean to say?
Speaker 10: I already gave my best and I have no regrets
Speaker 10: at all.
Speaker 1: That I feel sums William up the best no matter
Speaker 1: what others say, he has no regrets. Contrast this with
Speaker 1: how this is presented in the first broadcast.
Speaker 9: You can't sing, you can't dance, so what do you
Speaker 9: mean to say?
Speaker 10: And you know I have no professional training of singing.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 1: An unrelated response from William is spliced in in no
Speaker 1: small part, I think, to make him seem more delusional,
Speaker 1: like he thinks they were so blown away by his
Speaker 1: performance that they would be impressed by his lack of
Speaker 1: training and while awkward, this is how that response actually
Speaker 1: comes up in the full clip.
Speaker 4: No, William, you know you're not good enough for this, dude,
Speaker 4: but at least you came here.
Speaker 6: You had a good time.
Speaker 10: You had fun, right, Yes, and.
Speaker 1: We had fun watching you.
Speaker 10: Okay, thank you so much for coming down.
Speaker 9: No, we didn't go and do some homework.
Speaker 1: Okay, you won't tell your parents that you missed today
Speaker 1: to school.
Speaker 10: Yeah, no, you know I have no professional training of singing. No.
Speaker 1: So the context is actually quite different. He's speaking more
Speaker 1: defensively after being roundly rejected, almost offering an explanation for
Speaker 1: the performance, instead of the edit we see where he's
Speaker 1: positioned as being almost arrogant about it. This is the
Speaker 1: nature of reality TV, and it's prompted endless discussion since
Speaker 1: the early two thousands. Today, I think it's far more
Speaker 1: normal to assume what you're watching on reality TV isn't
Speaker 1: real than is but in the early two thousands, that
Speaker 1: built in skepticism wasn't fully formed, and it wasn't unusual
Speaker 1: to take things like that at face value. These days
Speaker 1: you have examples like Love Is Blind contestants suing their
Speaker 1: network for applying them with alcohol and misrepresenting them in
Speaker 1: the edit while paying them very little. But honestly, if
Speaker 1: you made those same complaints twenty years ago, the understanding
Speaker 1: of how these shows were built and profited from wasn't
Speaker 1: really well understood enough to build meaningful empathy for any
Speaker 1: of their participants. And so William is presented to the
Speaker 1: world as this William pathway.
Speaker 2: One the producers, cast and crew would like to express
Speaker 2: their gratitude to engineering student William Hung for showing up
Speaker 2: and shaking his bund And it's.
Speaker 1: This version of William that first becomes a viral sensation,
Speaker 1: but not necessarily overnight. It takes mainstream media outlets a
Speaker 1: few days before they start to jump onto the William train,
Speaker 1: but once it starts, it's unstoppable. The Asian boy came in,
Speaker 1: of course, he goes by William, Hong Abdul says, beginning
Speaker 1: to giggle like a kid. On the first day of
Speaker 1: gym class. On his list were two songs, and he said,
Speaker 1: A'll sing God Bless America and the second song was
Speaker 1: she Bangs. What a remarkable American Idol discovery in a nutshell.
Speaker 1: If you turn Clay ache and inside out, you would
Speaker 1: discover William.
Speaker 11: American Idol executive producer Nigel Lithgow admits that they are
Speaker 11: anxious to get the Bay Area belter back for a
Speaker 11: mid series special tentatively titled Uncut, Uncensored, and Untalented.
Speaker 1: Yes, William became a sensation to his bafflement because he'd
Speaker 1: auditioned four months earlier and had no indication of how
Speaker 1: his segment had been edited. And if you don't know,
Speaker 1: that's just kind of how reality TV works to this
Speaker 1: day unless you're a cast member who's also a credited
Speaker 1: producer or otherwise involved in the production. So William confirmed
Speaker 1: to me that when he auditioned, he signed a release
Speaker 1: form that basically meant he had no control over how much,
Speaker 1: or if any of his audition would appear in the
Speaker 1: final cut. He's signing over the footage of his likeness
Speaker 1: and effectively all authorial control of how we meet him.
Speaker 1: But this story didn't move at the speed most stories
Speaker 1: due today. William takes a little while to start meaningfully
Speaker 1: engaging with the sensation, and I think if it happened now,
Speaker 1: the ship might have already sailed. But media in two
Speaker 1: thousand and four moved a little slower. There were waves
Speaker 1: in which William became more popular, giving American idol producers
Speaker 1: time to respond to and gauge what to do with
Speaker 1: his popularity. Producer Nigel Lithgow commented in something called zap
Speaker 1: Tuit News in mid February, nearly a month after William's
Speaker 1: audition aired.
Speaker 11: I don't know what the future holds. He's going to
Speaker 11: be cold to do things, and if he's happy to
Speaker 11: do them, that's great. He shouldn't give up Berkeley. Obviously,
Speaker 11: he's an extremely intelligent guy and realizes that this could
Speaker 11: be his five minutes of fame.
Speaker 5: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: Potent phrase, salient phrase. In the immediate aftermath of the
Speaker 1: She Bangs audition, there was buzz in the news and online.
Speaker 1: But part of the reason we're still talking about him
Speaker 1: now is because Hung eventually became amenable to all this attention.
Speaker 1: This appears to have happened sometime in the first month
Speaker 1: after the audition aired because Hung was rejecting appearance requests
Speaker 1: at first. At the end of February, Hung turned down
Speaker 1: a chance to headline the halftime show of a pro
Speaker 1: lacrosse team in Philadelphia, citing the need to focus on
Speaker 1: his studies as the reason he was doing the occasional
Speaker 1: interview in the first month, but certainly not dropping his
Speaker 1: life entirely from an entertainment to night piece. From February tenth.
Speaker 11: I wasn't expecting this media exposure. I think it's a
Speaker 11: bit overwhelming. It's also a little bit surprising because I
Speaker 11: didn't expect this overwhelming fan base. I don't know. I'm
Speaker 11: really not sure about this, but it seems positive.
Speaker 1: As William talks about in our interview, the amount of
Speaker 1: protracted attention he was receiving, the King difficult to resist,
Speaker 1: and not strictly because of attention either. There was money
Speaker 1: in this and people weren't growing less interested in him.
Speaker 1: But again, this fervent kind of attention cuts a number
Speaker 1: of different ways, because it's in response to a fundamentally
Speaker 1: dishonest version of how William first responded during that audition,
Speaker 1: and in a truly archaic Internet landscape, early fan sites
Speaker 1: for him started to emerge, both genuine and ironic. But
Speaker 1: before we look at those, can I just say, combing
Speaker 1: through early two thousands fan sites nearly induced in epileptic
Speaker 1: attack in me so much neon, so many flashing gifts,
Speaker 1: just a complete misunderstanding of proper line spacing and fonts awful.
Speaker 1: You're welcome because, make no mistake, there was a vital
Speaker 1: Internet community around William, one that became impossible for both
Speaker 1: him and American Idol to ignore. On the earnest side,
Speaker 1: there was Billy hung dot com, a site that aimed
Speaker 1: to raise money to help William record an album.
Speaker 11: They said, while William may not have the raw talent
Speaker 11: that the judges were looking for, America sees something different.
Speaker 11: William Hung, in some small way, represents each of us
Speaker 11: and how we strive to reach our dreams, ignoring all
Speaker 11: the naysayers on the way. If William succeeds in reaching
Speaker 11: his dream this will teach all of us that we
Speaker 11: can reach any potential we set our mind to reach.
Speaker 11: If he doesn't achieve his goals, perhaps it is America
Speaker 11: and not William that has failed.
Speaker 1: And on the other side, be mocking sites with the
Speaker 1: same terrible blinking lights, most notably save William Hung dot com.
Speaker 11: They say this, We asked him to put down the
Speaker 11: microphone and step away from the stage, but William Hung
Speaker 11: wouldn't listen. When the music stops, Will is going to
Speaker 11: wake up to a cruel reality. People haven't been laughing
Speaker 11: with him. They've been laughing at him. Will's wild ride
Speaker 11: is going to come to a very lonely end by
Speaker 11: the end of the year. You'll probably laugh. Then, feeling guilty,
Speaker 11: you'll say, oh, well, we believe Will is going to
Speaker 11: need some serious psychological counseling, so we are collecting donations.
Speaker 1: This was matched with increasing mainstream attention, which I will
Speaker 1: summarize through this god awful Jimmy fallon impression on snl
Speaker 1: uh trigger warning for everything.
Speaker 4: Let me just say I have no professional training in us.
Speaker 1: Talk to me, tell me your name, you call me
Speaker 1: up like it's on the same uh huh uh huh.
Speaker 1: But the main website that launched him as an online
Speaker 1: personality was done by a couple named Don and Laura Chin,
Speaker 1: and their site, William Hung dot net, got over four
Speaker 1: million hits the first week of its launch. Add that
Speaker 1: to an online petition with one hundred thousand signatures to
Speaker 1: send Hung to Hollywood in late February two thousand and four,
Speaker 1: over a month after his appearance, and neither Idle nor
Speaker 1: Hung could ignore it any longer. They wanted him back.
Speaker 1: And remember that audition special Nigel Lithgow mentioned earlier. They
Speaker 1: did that in early March two thousand and four. But
Speaker 1: unlike the season one audition special, these auditions were all bad, uncut, uncensored, untalented.
Speaker 6: They braved the auditions, They braved the provoke critiques of
Speaker 6: the judges Tonight, you brave their performances live in person.
Speaker 6: Was the panel wrong to keep them in the dark?
Speaker 6: Or do they belong on this stage? Uncut, uncensored, but untalented?
Speaker 6: You watch, you decide.
Speaker 1: It's wild. The opening of the special pans across people
Speaker 1: who did poorly in the auditions and brings them back
Speaker 1: for an hour of prime time entertainment hosted by Ryan
Speaker 1: Seacrest wearing a suit jacket with a T shirt and jeans.
Speaker 1: Come on, and William, of course, is the best saved
Speaker 1: for last on this show.
Speaker 3: William the Guy's gotten over seven million hits on his
Speaker 3: fan website.
Speaker 6: Once an anonymous face in a crowded holding room. This
Speaker 6: man's life has changed beyond compare. Once he walked the
Speaker 6: campus of Berkeley alone, Now he needs a police escorts
Speaker 6: to make a chew with civil engineering classes. Once merely
Speaker 6: a number, his name is now legended across the country.
Speaker 6: Even Jimmy Fallon paid homage to William on Saturday Night Live.
Speaker 6: He's the latest American sixteen sensations.
Speaker 10: I get recognized everywhere. It's kind of difficult to get
Speaker 10: around without getting recognized.
Speaker 6: I guess his banging puts even Ricky Martin to shame.
Speaker 1: He is hung, and as you can hear, the Internet
Speaker 1: is cited as a big reason he's held on to
Speaker 1: all this attention. William is a celebrity who straddles time
Speaker 1: and technology. He's really only getting his dues six weeks
Speaker 1: after he first appeared, But the Internet is a crucial
Speaker 1: part of this success. But it's still framed as kind
Speaker 1: of a joke.
Speaker 3: You see you, h Wow, your life is completely changed.
Speaker 4: Huh.
Speaker 10: I can't believe it. Yeah, neither can we.
Speaker 1: So it's pretty indisputable that William Hung is the reason
Speaker 1: that this special happened at all. And if there's any
Speaker 1: clearer indication of how famous he was becoming. It was
Speaker 1: rumored that a clay Achin special was postponed to make
Speaker 1: room for uncut, uncensored, untalented. Being famously bad could be
Speaker 1: more profitable than being famously good. But I love clay
Speaker 1: Achin Invisibles my go to karaoke show, and it hasn't
Speaker 1: brought the house down once. Things had changed for William
Speaker 1: at this point. I love I heard that you were
Speaker 1: offered a record bill. Is it true?
Speaker 10: Yes?
Speaker 12: It is?
Speaker 1: Oh, and what did you decide to do?
Speaker 10: Did you take that? I'm still looking over the small details. Oh, yes,
Speaker 10: So what you have an agent? Now I have I'm
Speaker 10: getting somebody to walk on it. My dad again? Agents. Oh,
Speaker 10: I mean I'm trying to walk on it.
Speaker 13: You have.
Speaker 10: It's Team Hung, all right, it's I mean those are
Speaker 10: I mean, contrasts are very serious deals. Yes, and so
Speaker 10: they require attention. That's true.
Speaker 1: And the record he's talking about here was very real
Speaker 1: and recorded absurdly fast. Just a month after this special aired,
Speaker 1: William's album was out on April sixth, two thousand and four,
Speaker 1: and it was titled Inspiration like you heard in the
Speaker 1: primetime interview. The album carefully projects Hung's image, inspirational in
Speaker 1: the no regrets sense, but still clearly pushing him to
Speaker 1: look silly. Of course, it leads with The she Bang's cover,
Speaker 1: and the rest are kind of randomized covers with really
Speaker 1: basic karaoke tracks behind them. With respect to william it
Speaker 1: sounds like an album that was recorded in a weekend,
Speaker 1: because it was He covers eagles.
Speaker 14: On cooing am I as he covers Elton John and then'
Speaker 14: Gonna be.
Speaker 15: As a tibine And of course the album can't be
Speaker 15: complete without the YMC a.
Speaker 10: WHYMC.
Speaker 4: It's hard to say, why m C hey, I'm everything?
Speaker 15: Well your man to John you can hang out with
Speaker 15: Pole say.
Speaker 1: Interwoven into this worth these zen like monologues that fed
Speaker 1: into Williams. Don't give up persona.
Speaker 10: Even with a lot of talent and singing, even with
Speaker 10: a lot of talent in whatever you choose to do,
Speaker 10: you still have to put in this hard walk and
Speaker 10: you need that determination and persevereance not to give up.
Speaker 1: And was this album reviewed well, No, of course not.
Speaker 1: But by the end of April it had broken the
Speaker 1: top thirty in the country with over forty thousand sales,
Speaker 1: and it would go on to move two hundred thousand.
Speaker 1: William got paid a twenty five thousand dollars advance to
Speaker 1: record the album, which you Don't need Me to tell
Speaker 1: you is a life changing amount of money, especially for
Speaker 1: a college student, and so he decided to take a
Speaker 1: step back from school while he explored whatever this was.
Speaker 1: But this didn't come without its fair share of criticism,
Speaker 1: particularly among Asian writers and critics who couldn't help it
Speaker 1: feel uncomfortable with the way that William was being positioned
Speaker 1: by the media. Emil Guillermo wrote for s Fgate in
Speaker 1: April two thousand and four.
Speaker 11: When I first saw Hong Kong born UC Berkeley engineering
Speaker 11: student William Hung sing that Ricky Martin song on Fox's
Speaker 11: American Idol last January, I tried to ignore it, but
Speaker 11: after Hung's humiliation, there came a nice outpouring of sympathy
Speaker 11: for the rejected puppy dog. Here was an accented Asian
Speaker 11: American with bad hair, bad teeth, bad moves, and a
Speaker 11: bad accent, and even though he can't sing, America still
Speaker 11: loved him. Certainly, there'd be no shortage of worthy candidates
Speaker 11: for Hung Like stardom. Regular American Idol viewers know tons
Speaker 11: of good singers that have been rejected and abused by
Speaker 11: these shows. Simon Cowell, the difference here Hung is Asian
Speaker 11: American and the accented foreigner gag is still considered acceptable
Speaker 11: shtick in modern comedy, at least when it comes to
Speaker 11: Asian Americans. As Asian Americans, we look through this racial
Speaker 11: lens and we see this guy who embodies all these
Speaker 11: stereotypes we are trying to escape from, said James Howe,
Speaker 11: a documentary filmmaker who explored Asian American male sexuality in
Speaker 11: Masters of the Pillow.
Speaker 1: And we will be talked about this more in depth
Speaker 1: next week, but this conversation is obviously very relevant then
Speaker 1: and now, and something that Williams spoken on for two decades,
Speaker 1: including in our interview and the rest of two thousand
Speaker 1: and four becomes a complete whirlwind for him. There is
Speaker 1: this very two thousand music video to accompany his she
Speaker 1: Bangs cover. There's a vanity documentary called hang In with Hung,
Speaker 1: and in old school fashion, he goes on this extensive
Speaker 1: late night tour to promote the album.
Speaker 13: Maskats's best known RIZ rendition of Ricky Martin she Bangs
Speaker 13: at the Fox American Idola Audition since Na has become
Speaker 13: an overnight cultural phenomenon. Lady Gentlemen, Harris and I performing
Speaker 13: Yes that very song from his debut CD Inspiration, Please
Speaker 13: Welcome William Hung, Lady Guleman.
Speaker 1: And By May two thousand and four, William Hung is
Speaker 1: one of the top acts in the country, performing at
Speaker 1: Wango Tango at the Rose Bowl over a week before
Speaker 1: Fantasia Burina actually won season three of American Idol. The
Speaker 1: other acts at Wango Tango this year buckle In were
Speaker 1: out Cast Ashley Simpson, The Backstreet Boys, Hillary and Haley, Duff,
Speaker 1: Beefy Dobson, Oh My God, the Pussycat Dolls, nerd Jeded Jackson,
Speaker 1: The Black Eyed Keys, and I could keep going. It
Speaker 1: was two thousand and four and William Hung had made it.
Speaker 1: But things started to slow down a little after Season
Speaker 1: three of American Idol wrapped up. He made bank with
Speaker 1: ads for Jack in the Box, Singular Wireless, and Ask Jeeves,
Speaker 1: but by late summer the attention appeared to be slipping.
Speaker 1: In August, the contra cost at times said William was
Speaker 1: quote still hanging on to his fifteen minutes unquote by
Speaker 1: taking his act to Singapore. Then he released a second
Speaker 1: an album in two thousand and four called Hung for
Speaker 1: the Holidays that didn't go over quite as well as Inspiration.
Speaker 10: City s, I Walched, Busy, Sy Watched Dress and Holliday
Speaker 10: stylele in the Airds.
Speaker 1: And things never again really reached the heights that they
Speaker 1: had for William in two thousand and four, with year
Speaker 1: end lists declaring William Hung around for a long time.
Speaker 1: From here, William becomes a popular reference, but was unlikely
Speaker 1: to make those big wango tango appearances he once did,
Speaker 1: particularly after his third and final album, Miracle Happy Summer
Speaker 1: from William Hung failed to make waves in two thousand
Speaker 1: and five because the.
Speaker 4: Sun is shutting, Oh the Sun. Those like a perfect Day,
Speaker 4: I love it, we love it.
Speaker 1: Fan sites are updated less frequently and then not at all.
Speaker 1: He makes a few cameos here and there, most notably
Speaker 1: in Arrested Development in two thousand and six.
Speaker 16: If you know, you know, well, it looks like we've
Speaker 16: got a mistrial.
Speaker 9: But on the plus side, we've also got a hung.
Speaker 1: Jury hit it. But William was soon down to private
Speaker 1: appearances and gigs. A two thousand and six clipping said
Speaker 1: he charged four thousand dollars to play your holiday party,
Speaker 1: He'd made appearances at baseball games, he was declared the
Speaker 1: art of choke king question Mark. The list goes on,
Speaker 1: and by the end of the two thousands he seemed
Speaker 1: to just be scraping by, and the whole ditching college
Speaker 1: for entertainment thing didn't seem like the right choice anymore.
Speaker 1: So it was time to return to school and get
Speaker 1: a day job, even in the midst of a surprise
Speaker 1: cameo on Idol in twenty ten. Because keep in mind,
Speaker 1: William is consistent in having no bad blood with the show,
Speaker 1: he then made a try of it as a high
Speaker 1: school math teacher for a time, something he references in
Speaker 1: his Ted Talks because for some reason, if you're a
Speaker 1: sixteenth minute character, you will somehow end up with a
Speaker 1: Ted talk. He talks about his experience teaching here.
Speaker 10: But then when I asked the students to do the
Speaker 10: math problems, they refused. Could it be my thinking? Then
Speaker 10: my master teacher gestured to me to get our class.
Speaker 10: He said, William, if you kick this up, I will
Speaker 10: fail you. He had to take over the class for
Speaker 10: rest of the day. When I went home, I cried
Speaker 10: because I felt like that was one of the most
Speaker 10: embarrassing moments in my life. It's like getting booed off
Speaker 10: the stage.
Speaker 1: And look, anyone teaching high schoolers is five thousand times
Speaker 1: braver than me. I would never After teaching high school,
Speaker 1: William went back to school as a student, finishing his
Speaker 1: degree in math at cal State Northridge in twenty ten,
Speaker 1: then getting a master's degree, and he's now working on
Speaker 1: a second master's degree. After he flunked out as a teacher,
Speaker 1: he became a data analyst for the despised La County
Speaker 1: Sheriff's Department, leading me to the crucial question, does a
Speaker 1: cab include William Hung? Very possibly? He then goes over
Speaker 1: to the Department of Public Health, then more recently, back
Speaker 1: to the Sheriff's department. William, I just want to talk.
Speaker 1: But through all this, William keeps up with his public profile.
Speaker 1: There the Ted Talks in the twenty tens, and there's
Speaker 1: his on and off career as a celebrity poker player.
Speaker 17: So obviously the dream for a lot of people is
Speaker 17: to end up playing professionally. And I feel like You've
Speaker 17: done a lot of cool things in your life. You
Speaker 17: got to sing, you got to travel the world and
Speaker 17: perform for people, so what would it feel like to
Speaker 17: reach that level of being able to play poker professionally.
Speaker 10: I think you'll be awesome because if I can't do
Speaker 10: that like some of the tournament professionals, I get to
Speaker 10: travel across the world through charity like you, That'd be fantastic.
Speaker 1: And this poker side hustle started as a hobby and
Speaker 1: began to tumble into gambling addiction, which Hanga said contributed
Speaker 1: to the end of his first marriage. In twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: at the beginning of his making the press rounds for
Speaker 1: the twentieth anniversary of the She Bangs audition, he shared
Speaker 1: about recovering from gambling addiction. This is from a talk
Speaker 1: with People magazine.
Speaker 11: I knew I was good at poker, but then I
Speaker 11: got greedy. I got into sports betting, the whole gamut.
Speaker 11: I know better now. I wasn't supposed to do those things,
Speaker 11: but I did it anyway, and.
Speaker 9: I paid for it.
Speaker 11: I got divorced, and I learned I had to be
Speaker 11: smart about which risks I chose to take.
Speaker 1: But through all of this, over the course of twenty years,
Speaker 1: William's message has remained consistent even as he's had to
Speaker 1: contend with all of this criticism, exploitation, and even addiction.
Speaker 1: He's an extremely resilient person and very kind. And when
Speaker 1: we come back, I'm speaking with a man himself, William
Speaker 1: m f huh. Welcome back to sixteenth minute, when American
Speaker 1: Idol debuted. I was in element Cory School and was
Speaker 1: so inspired to also become a pop star like Kelly
Speaker 1: Clarkson that I went to audition to sing the national
Speaker 1: anthem at a minor, minor league baseball game in my
Speaker 1: city in spite of the fact that I was paralyzingly shy.
Speaker 1: And guess what, bitch, I got the gig wearing what
Speaker 1: I now realize, we're somewhat culturally insensitive twisties and a
Speaker 1: Walmart shirt that said all American Girl. I sang the
Speaker 1: national anthem to four thousand people, and I was fine,
Speaker 1: take off your hat and stand or don't because America
Speaker 1: is not a respectable place. But listen to baby Jamie. Okay,
Speaker 1: a little pitchy dog at the end, but good for her.
Speaker 1: She's got a big future in radio. And today we
Speaker 1: are revisiting the saga of William Honk and I say,
Speaker 1: why not just cut to the chase and let's talk
Speaker 1: to the man himself. So, without further ado, here is
Speaker 1: my interview with the one and only William Honk.
Speaker 10: Hi everyone, this is William Houn. You're probably the only
Speaker 10: from my American Idol audition back in two thousand and four.
Speaker 10: It was a very unique audition. I sang the song
Speaker 10: by Ricky Martin.
Speaker 1: She bangs the definitive performance of that song. With all
Speaker 1: due respect to Ricky Martin. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: doing this. I'm so excited to talk to you.
Speaker 10: You're welcome.
Speaker 1: It's the twentieth anniversary of your audition originally airing, and
Speaker 1: there were some pieces and some interviews with you. What
Speaker 1: is it like to reflect on that moment.
Speaker 10: I can't believe the time went by so fast.
Speaker 1: Before we get into talking about American Idol and reflecting
Speaker 1: on that, tell me a little bit about yourself. Where
Speaker 1: did you grow up, How did you grow up? Who
Speaker 1: were you at the time of this audition.
Speaker 10: Well, I used to enjoy singing karaoke when I was
Speaker 10: very young, around ten years old with my parents. And
Speaker 10: then something that people might not know about me is
Speaker 10: that I geek out on video games and math. I'm
Speaker 10: very good at video games. I'm very good at math. Actually,
Speaker 10: you know, wherefore I put my heart into I feel
Speaker 10: like I can get to the top. That was my mentality.
Speaker 10: When I played Pokemon trading card game when I was younger,
Speaker 10: I made it all the way to the World Championships.
Speaker 1: Wait, tell me about that.
Speaker 10: Yeah, so you know, I started playing casually with my friends,
Speaker 10: you know, in school, and then I competed in local
Speaker 10: Tolerman's and then I just woke. I just walked my
Speaker 10: your way up, you know, city level, state level, world level.
Speaker 10: It's like, I can't believe it.
Speaker 1: God, Wait, how old were you when you were doing
Speaker 1: those tournaments?
Speaker 10: Like I think it's the high school college years before
Speaker 10: American Idol. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Where were the World Championships? Did you travel to compete?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: What did you do?
Speaker 10: Yeah? I remember the World Championships was in San Diego
Speaker 10: in California, so it's not too far, but it was
Speaker 10: definitely a memory I'll never forget.
Speaker 1: So you're you're very passionate. When you like something, you
Speaker 1: like it hard.
Speaker 10: Yes.
Speaker 1: What were your go to games growing up?
Speaker 15: Oh?
Speaker 10: I love Super Mario Brothers, Tetris. I played a lot
Speaker 10: of role playing games like Selda Final Fantasy.
Speaker 1: That's so cool. That you did it with your that
Speaker 1: it was like a family activity too. What were your
Speaker 1: parents and families go to songs? Oh?
Speaker 10: They they liked the older Chinese songs. I wasn't used
Speaker 10: to listening to American pop music. I only took it
Speaker 10: upon myself after I started in college. I went to
Speaker 10: civil Engineering to study at Berkeley, and I thought everything
Speaker 10: would be good because high school was easy for me.
Speaker 10: But in college, no, not so easy. I was struggling.
Speaker 10: I almost got kicked out of school, and I figured, Okay,
Speaker 10: well I need to try something else. One day I
Speaker 10: started poster for a school talent show. Yes, and I
Speaker 10: started watching and studying the music videos from Ricky Martin online.
Speaker 1: It was just like a way of kind of like
Speaker 1: getting out of your head and putting yourself out there.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I mean, I had no expectations. I started the
Speaker 10: talent show. I thought, well, let's see what happens, and
Speaker 10: then somehow, to my surprise, I won. I won a DVD.
Speaker 1: Player that's such an early two thousands price. And what
Speaker 1: did you sing? Did you sing? She bangs at the
Speaker 1: talent show? Yes, I'm curious a little bit. If you
Speaker 1: don't mind getting into it high school, you were in
Speaker 1: the Was it the Van Nuys area once you moved?
Speaker 10: Yes?
Speaker 1: And then when when did you move to the US?
Speaker 10: Originally a long time ago, like like the nineteen ninety
Speaker 10: three maybe, yeah.
Speaker 1: Okay, so the elementary So high school's kind of a breeze.
Speaker 1: What changes in college? Is it just the adjustment? Was
Speaker 1: it the program you were in? Like, yeah, take me
Speaker 1: through that a little bit.
Speaker 10: I think the part of it is that I feel
Speaker 10: like it's hard. It's harder to find the support because
Speaker 10: in the beginning I didn't know where to find the support.
Speaker 10: I was getting by. I was passing, but I wasn't
Speaker 10: doing great. I struggle. My foundation was not very good.
Speaker 10: And that's that. And then and then eventually I need
Speaker 10: to get get some help, you know, from my peers,
Speaker 10: from tutors, I fold away. You know, I found a
Speaker 10: way around it. But I got through it. But but
Speaker 10: it's still not the same because maybe in high school
Speaker 10: it was easier to get that, you know, a right
Speaker 10: in college and college is so different.
Speaker 1: So you do this talent show, you preform, she bangs,
Speaker 1: you win, You've got the DVD player. What happens next?
Speaker 10: A few days later, I heard on the news that
Speaker 10: they have American Idol auditions coming to San Francisco. I
Speaker 10: decided it was a good time to try.
Speaker 1: Were you a fan of the show at the time.
Speaker 10: I wasn't sure. I didn't know what some of the
Speaker 10: auditions look like. I felt like it was either very
Speaker 10: good or very bad. And I knew that Simon cow
Speaker 10: was the mean guy. Yes, Randy is the wild card,
Speaker 10: and then Paula was going to be a nice lady.
Speaker 1: Tell me about the experience of auditioning because I know
Speaker 1: that now understanding how Reality TV is edited, which I
Speaker 1: didn't at the time, the experience of auditioning, and then
Speaker 1: we'll talk about the edit that was released. But what
Speaker 1: was the audition experience like?
Speaker 10: Well, they asked me more questions. Uh, they asked me
Speaker 10: why I want to audition? What makes meeting I could
Speaker 10: become the next American Idol? And for the listeners, you
Speaker 10: can you can look at the extended audition online.
Speaker 1: How does the day go?
Speaker 10: You stand in line, you wait, you you sit down
Speaker 10: on the bench. You know, it was at baseball park,
Speaker 10: so I wait for my turn along with thousands of people.
Speaker 10: But when I got close to my turn, I was lucky.
Speaker 10: I only had to wait for a few hours. But
Speaker 10: I was watching all these people in front of me.
Speaker 10: They only got like fifteen seconds to sing before they
Speaker 10: were told to go home. And then I thought, well,
Speaker 10: maybe it will be the same result for me. You know,
Speaker 10: I have no reason to believe that I would suddenly
Speaker 10: make it to Hollywood or even get to see Reddy
Speaker 10: Paula assignment. It takes multiple rounds. So I saw the
Speaker 10: staff members they were they were going to the other
Speaker 10: people really quick, and then I thought, oh, no, is
Speaker 10: it gonna be the same for me? And then they
Speaker 10: let me stay over a minute, and then they somehow
Speaker 10: they let me through. They told me to come back
Speaker 10: the next day.
Speaker 1: How many people are invited back.
Speaker 10: It's about two hundred, maybe one hundred and eighty auditioned
Speaker 10: in front of the producers. And then and then you know,
Speaker 10: they told me the same she bangs I did. And
Speaker 10: then I thought, well it could I mean, at any
Speaker 10: point I thought I would be done, that's it the war.
Speaker 10: But somehow they let me through again. Okay, it's when
Speaker 10: I get to see Randy Paula and Simon. I know
Speaker 10: that because as soon as I get past the second
Speaker 10: of the producers, I got to meet Ryan Secret.
Speaker 1: Did your friends know you were doing this? Did you
Speaker 1: sort of do it on a whim?
Speaker 10: Oh? No. I tried to keep it to myself. I
Speaker 10: didn't want to let to me if people know about it.
Speaker 10: I only told one classmate friend because I knew that
Speaker 10: I had to miss a couple of days of classes,
Speaker 10: so I told her to take those for me. I
Speaker 10: treat you afterwards.
Speaker 1: Wow, okay, So then the audition happens. Then you what
Speaker 1: do you have to just like return to your life.
Speaker 1: How much time is there between the audition and when it.
Speaker 10: Airs, about four months difference?
Speaker 1: How did you feel afterwards? Was it just like, well
Speaker 1: that was fun?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 10: Yeah, yeah, I no, really, I had no reason to
Speaker 10: expect anything else. I know, they told me that, you know,
Speaker 10: you're not you're not ready for this. You cannot move
Speaker 10: on to Hollywood. It's okay, I mean I expected that result.
Speaker 10: It's not nothing surprising, But but what was surprising is
Speaker 10: that the reaction after they you know, I mean, the
Speaker 10: first thing that surprises is that why they chose to
Speaker 10: broadcast my audition because in January I saw myself in
Speaker 10: the football commercial.
Speaker 1: Was your audition included in like promotions before yours.
Speaker 10: Yes, it was during the It was during the Cotton
Speaker 10: Bowl commercial and in New York State. I still remember it.
Speaker 10: I didn't know what to expect. I have no idea
Speaker 10: why they would pick my audition to promote a lot,
Speaker 10: not just on time. And then I was thinking like, like, wait,
Speaker 10: what what is different? What was different about my audition?
Speaker 10: Why would they want to make my audition stand out? Uh?
Speaker 10: Not many people to know this. Last fast forward to
Speaker 10: the day. I was watching the auditions by myself, and
Speaker 10: I purposely locked myself in the room, uh, inside my dorm.
Speaker 10: I didn't want it. I didn't want people to know
Speaker 10: about it. I don't I don't know how people react
Speaker 10: to it. So I was watching from the episode from
Speaker 10: start to finish. Uh, in the you know, the San
Speaker 10: Francisco episode, right and then and then I noticed that
Speaker 10: many people who don't make it to Hollywood, they would
Speaker 10: get angry and upset.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how did you feel about the Like the way
Speaker 1: that they edited and sort of framed the audition?
Speaker 10: I thought I thought it was it was good for me.
Speaker 10: Uh yeah, I mean, I mean, of course I didn't
Speaker 10: have the roll, classical talent or the musical talent, you know,
Speaker 10: if you if you look in from it, you know,
Speaker 10: if you compare to people that are trained. I know,
Speaker 10: I mean I know that, I mean I'm self aware
Speaker 10: enough to know that, but but you know, I feel like, wow,
Speaker 10: I can't believe that that I'm one of the few
Speaker 10: people who who was who was positive working out the
Speaker 10: audition group.
Speaker 1: Even though the audition is like not framed as this
Speaker 1: is a good audition. You're someone who like has a
Speaker 1: lot of composure, and you're like, ohh, so you were
Speaker 1: you were happy with the appearance generally, yeah, yeah, And
Speaker 1: overnight you are a student. You are by all accounts,
Speaker 1: a random person, and then all of a sudden you're
Speaker 1: William Hung. How quickly do you feel this sort of
Speaker 1: momentum start and like, how did you handle it?
Speaker 10: It was overwhelming At first, I got I got so
Speaker 10: many interview and performing opportunity. I had to talk to
Speaker 10: my classmate friends. I eventually my parents found out. I
Speaker 10: also had to talk to my parents.
Speaker 1: How did they take it?
Speaker 10: My parents initially they didn't take it that too well.
Speaker 10: They asked a question, why I put myself on the
Speaker 10: spot like that, you.
Speaker 1: Know, why saying was that like not something that they
Speaker 1: had known you to do in the past.
Speaker 10: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. They didn't expect that.
Speaker 1: What kind of opportunities were being presented in the first
Speaker 1: sort of wave of attention.
Speaker 10: The first ones I did I remember were Entertainment Tonight,
Speaker 10: Ryan ste Kreshow and Ellen de Generous.
Speaker 1: I'm interested to talk about and I know this has
Speaker 1: been sort of reflected on in the twenty year articles,
Speaker 1: all these different ways that you are presented to the
Speaker 1: public where you are consistently yeah, I'm myself and like,
Speaker 1: I like singing and this is a positive thing. You know,
Speaker 1: there's all of these reactions where some people act as
Speaker 1: if you're not in on the joke. Was that frustrating?
Speaker 1: Like how do you handle that? Because it's like in retrospect,
Speaker 1: if you read anything you said, it's very clear that
Speaker 1: you know you're not approaching this like I am the
Speaker 1: world's most amazing singer.
Speaker 10: No, I'm not. The way I approach is that is
Speaker 10: that I don't feel comfortable with the people twisting my story.
Speaker 10: And I think I think, you know, I think American
Speaker 10: Idol is an amazing platform. So it's not from American Idol,
Speaker 10: it's the media. Some people on the media, they decided
Speaker 10: to twist the story.
Speaker 1: You know, what did the media get wrong about you
Speaker 1: at the time.
Speaker 10: I don't agree with with my with me, uh, portraying
Speaker 10: Asian stereotypes, that's the most common one I get.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 10: And the reason I don't agree with that is that, yes,
Speaker 10: I don't have the raw talent. I you know, I
Speaker 10: didn't make it to Hollywood right now after many years,
Speaker 10: you know, I have empathy for those people. I understand
Speaker 10: where they came from because you know, back in the
Speaker 10: days we only had very few, We have very few
Speaker 10: respectable Asian actors or entertainers.
Speaker 1: And like crossed over into America.
Speaker 10: Yeah right, all right, maybe Jackie Chan, Michelle Yo. And
Speaker 10: that's about it.
Speaker 1: What also interests me, because this is a show about
Speaker 1: the Internet, is how this happens at this weird point
Speaker 1: where there's a lot of traditional media covering your story
Speaker 1: and then there's also like random people on the Internet.
Speaker 1: I remember that like huge petition to have you returned
Speaker 1: to American ideas. Oh yeah, yeah, it's a weird technology
Speaker 1: crossroads too. Were you aware of the internet conversations around you?
Speaker 1: Did you participate them? What was the situation there?
Speaker 10: I didn't participate in them because I'm only one person.
Speaker 10: I could not handle all that totally. Yeah, And I
Speaker 10: don't think it would be healthy from mental health side
Speaker 10: of it to look at the worst and negative comments,
Speaker 10: you know. I mean someone even made up a story
Speaker 10: that I committed suicide due to hearing over those Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 10: it's the article. The article may have been might be
Speaker 10: still online today. When people ask me about it at
Speaker 10: that time, I told them I never used drugs. I
Speaker 10: hate drugs. So I'm standing before you, very very healthy,
Speaker 10: very positive. Right.
Speaker 1: How do you maintain and manage your mental health when
Speaker 1: you're going through something so intense and also not relatable
Speaker 1: to most people?
Speaker 10: How do you?
Speaker 1: How did you manage it?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 10: I try. I try to take the positive criticism, the
Speaker 10: constructive criticism that I can apply to improve myself, you know,
Speaker 10: like like like how for example, maybe suggestions or how
Speaker 10: I handle the media suggestions, how I meant how I
Speaker 10: manage myself you know, moving forward? Uh? And then what
Speaker 10: the negative criticism that that that's that I cannot apply.
Speaker 10: I cannot improve myself with. What's the point of listening
Speaker 10: to it? Just enjoy it? For the aside, we want.
Speaker 1: More people need to take that advice, and we'll be
Speaker 1: right back with more from William Hung. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: sixteenth Minute. My name is Jamie Loftus and Twist. A
Speaker 1: couple years after my iconic debut at Campanelli Stadium in Brockton, Massachusetts,
Speaker 1: I sang the national anthem again to another sold out
Speaker 1: crowd who was there to see baseball and not me,
Speaker 1: And this time my little brother sang with me, and yes,
Speaker 1: I had the same culturally insensitive hairstyle. You can blame
Speaker 1: my mom our. Whole thing became that when a Canadian
Speaker 1: baseball team came to town, I would sing the American
Speaker 1: national anthem and Ben would sing the Canadian national anthem.
Speaker 1: And my brother was really little, so it was very cute.
Speaker 1: Here's Ben.
Speaker 4: Ben loved it.
Speaker 8: They were born a Canadian that had a little anthem.
Speaker 5: Oh Cada, my home man.
Speaker 1: Ben, he's slaying there. Anyways, Here's the rest of my
Speaker 1: interview with William Hung. It all seems like everything happens
Speaker 1: very fast because you are on the show, there's these
Speaker 1: different rounds of discourse about you, and then you're making
Speaker 1: an album. How did that sort of come together?
Speaker 10: One of my record companies at the time called records.
Speaker 10: They noticed the opportunity. They saw how I had like
Speaker 10: insane website traffic for my website. Yeah. Yeah, they mentioned
Speaker 10: the petition one too. Yeah, they noticed those things, and
Speaker 10: then they took a chance to reach out to me.
Speaker 10: They will offer like a twenty five thousand dollars advance
Speaker 10: for the record contract.
Speaker 1: Oh my, and you're like a college student, so.
Speaker 10: Yeah, twenty years ago. Well, I think the money was
Speaker 10: definitely a factor because I know that that if I
Speaker 10: take on this opportunity, you know, it'll be it'll be
Speaker 10: way worth way more than that. You know, it's not
Speaker 10: just the record contract by itself, it's you know, I'm
Speaker 10: going to get more performance, more commercials, things like that.
Speaker 10: So I knew that that financial side, yeah, it makes
Speaker 10: sense for me to take that chance. But I think
Speaker 10: on the other side, the I would say the personal brand. Uh,
Speaker 10: the biggest opportunity I had by taking this is to
Speaker 10: share my version of my own story.
Speaker 1: It's like an opportunity to sort of control the narrative
Speaker 1: about yourself.
Speaker 10: That was yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the reason. That's the
Speaker 10: reason I said, yes, that that's the main reason.
Speaker 1: How did you want to shift things? At that time?
Speaker 10: I try to focus on the positive. When people question
Speaker 10: like like why why am I in the entertainment industry?
Speaker 10: Then that's a common question I get at the time,
Speaker 10: like like, you don't have to you know, you don't
Speaker 10: have the word talent. Why you wanted to still do this?
Speaker 10: You know, don't you realize people are laughing at you?
Speaker 10: And and I say, my response is that, you know,
Speaker 10: I can't please everybody, you know I have I know
Speaker 10: I have fans that that that that want me to perform,
Speaker 10: they want to see me. Uh. And then I focused
Speaker 10: on on bringing happiness to my fans.
Speaker 1: I mean, this first album does super super well. I
Speaker 1: remember seeing it stares. So you do a couple albums
Speaker 1: three totals, like two studio albums to christmasself and that's
Speaker 1: like throughout the mid two thousands. Are you making your
Speaker 1: full time living off of this at the.
Speaker 10: Time, Yeah, I did it a full time for about
Speaker 10: four years.
Speaker 1: From these very chaotic four years. Do you have any
Speaker 1: favorite memories or appearances or anything that kind of sticks
Speaker 1: out to you is like, wow, that was really cool.
Speaker 10: Well, the one of the most nerve racking performances I
Speaker 10: did was for the Rose Bowl when I was a
Speaker 10: rnal last performer, I was on the same level as
Speaker 10: the you know, Jennet Jackson Black Ice piece at the time,
Speaker 10: the Room five was crazy.
Speaker 1: Something that I learned more about from your TED talk
Speaker 1: that I'm really interested to talk about is the moment
Speaker 1: where you're like, all right, I'm going to get back
Speaker 1: to being myself and having kind of a normal life.
Speaker 1: When did you decide sort of like I don't really
Speaker 1: want to perform full time anymore, and how did you
Speaker 1: navigate back into normal life.
Speaker 10: It's a transition, I think, keeping it real with you,
Speaker 10: I don't think I can go back to normal life
Speaker 10: one hundred percent. It just doesn't. I don't that will
Speaker 10: never happen. But that the way I try to transition
Speaker 10: is that, you know, I try to do the normal things,
Speaker 10: you know, going to school, eating a normal meal, not
Speaker 10: a fancy restaurant, or you know, go and join my hobbies,
Speaker 10: whether it's playing sports or video games, whatever, hang out
Speaker 10: with friends. Just gradually get back into the normal life.
Speaker 1: Take me through your kind of career as you're coming
Speaker 1: off this wild four year journey.
Speaker 10: So the first thing I did was I decided that
Speaker 10: I need to go back to school. I need to
Speaker 10: finish my degree, and then I changed my major to math.
Speaker 10: I finished school, I thought I was going to become
Speaker 10: a teacher. That's probably what you heard in my tech talk.
Speaker 10: I wanted to become a math teacher, but it was
Speaker 10: so tough because I feel like math teacher, like I
Speaker 10: wanted to give But sometimes it's like it's like it's
Speaker 10: like an extra job. You know, it's like it's not
Speaker 10: just a job in the classroom, but it's also the
Speaker 10: job outside the classroom.
Speaker 1: Did you enjoy being a teacher?
Speaker 10: I enjoyed it, but I'm not sure if I want
Speaker 10: that as my as my long term career. So that
Speaker 10: that's why, you know. I when I saw the chance
Speaker 10: to apply for the Sheriff's Department for the statistical analysts,
Speaker 10: so the numbers guy, it's like, okay, why not. You know,
Speaker 10: that's that's good, that's a good, good time to try.
Speaker 10: I tried it. I got in. It was pretty cool.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 10: I feel like I'm part of the bigger mission to
Speaker 10: help prevent and reduce the crime. That's really that's nice, nice,
Speaker 10: nice mission to be part of. I did that for
Speaker 10: about two years, and then I got promoted to work
Speaker 10: for public health for about six years, and then I
Speaker 10: decided to do something a little crazy, so you know,
Speaker 10: maybe it's time for me to uh get out of
Speaker 10: my job start my own entertainment business again.
Speaker 1: I wanted to touch on this before we talk about
Speaker 1: the entertainment company. You bring this up in your TED
Speaker 1: talk as well. How the audition kind of followed you
Speaker 1: into the workplace, Like what was navigating that like when
Speaker 1: people are like, wait a second, why do I.
Speaker 10: Was actually very open about it. I decided that being
Speaker 10: open was the best way forward because once they know
Speaker 10: the first time my whole story, they will stop asking
Speaker 10: questions about it eventually. So yeah, I think that sharing
Speaker 10: everything was the easiest way.
Speaker 1: And then you want to get back into entertainment. Tell
Speaker 1: me about that period of time.
Speaker 10: It was a very very interesting timing because something that
Speaker 10: another thing that people might not know is that I've
Speaker 10: been playing and studying poker for many years on the side.
Speaker 10: It's another one of my psychics. So at the time
Speaker 10: when I quit my job, the main reason though, it
Speaker 10: was that I was I was There's something called a cameo.
Speaker 17: Uh.
Speaker 10: It's like an app where people could request like a
Speaker 10: short video for birthday, uh, graduation, motivation, and of course
Speaker 10: she bangs uh uh. And then I got for some
Speaker 10: reason within you know, that that year that I chose
Speaker 10: to quit, you know, but the year before that, I
Speaker 10: got so many requests, uh, you know, like more than
Speaker 10: twenty each day. And then the place I'm living at
Speaker 10: in a l A it's not ideal for doing that
Speaker 10: because you know, my my my house has read in
Speaker 10: walls mine and then my neighbors were getting very upset.
Speaker 10: Uh they were, they would complaining, they were banging the wall.
Speaker 10: And that's that's why I feel like, Okay, well, you know,
Speaker 10: between that new business, you know, uh and then my poker,
Speaker 10: I feel like I could make it. I could make
Speaker 10: it my own.
Speaker 1: And is that what you're doing now? Or where are
Speaker 1: you at now?
Speaker 10: The first few years when I after I decided to
Speaker 10: quit my job, I still remember, it was around the
Speaker 10: twenty twenty twenty, right before the pandemic. It was rough.
Speaker 10: I moved from l A all the way to Florida
Speaker 10: because I knew a friend there, you know, because at
Speaker 10: the time it was hard to find the house where
Speaker 10: I could do that, the singing the cambo to earn
Speaker 10: the money, because if I moved to another place I
Speaker 10: could have the same problem. You not many people could
Speaker 10: put up with that. But at the place I moved to,
Speaker 10: it was a big house where the room was very
Speaker 10: step was pretty far away from the from the from
Speaker 10: other people.
Speaker 1: So how long did you stay in Florida? Are you
Speaker 1: still there? Did you move back to California?
Speaker 10: Yeah? So I stayed in Florida for about two years.
Speaker 10: And then and then after I recovered from the COVID,
Speaker 10: I gradually also started earning some extra money from poker.
Speaker 10: Everything was good, I earned, I earned really good money,
Speaker 10: more than my job, you know. Uh. And then and
Speaker 10: then eventually another friend reached out to me, you know,
Speaker 10: uh that she said like, maybe, you know, maybe it's
Speaker 10: time for you to still of Las Vegas, you know,
Speaker 10: because Las Vegas would be an upgrade from Florida for sure,
Speaker 10: especially especially from playing for playing poker, and I got
Speaker 10: a pretty good deal on the house at the time,
Speaker 10: so it's like, Okay, let let's try, let's let's go
Speaker 10: for it.
Speaker 1: And then to Vegas.
Speaker 10: Yeah yeah, yeah, So in about two years I moved
Speaker 10: to Vegas and then and then reality started to set in.
Speaker 10: My entertainment business was not as good as before. The
Speaker 10: poker competitions a lot harder over there, So I wasn't
Speaker 10: doing so good.
Speaker 1: And then did you stay in Vegas or did you
Speaker 1: go back to California or.
Speaker 10: At one point I was so I was again desperate.
Speaker 10: I knew I shouldn't do this, but I somehow, but
Speaker 10: I was desperate. Maybe I can, I hope I was,
Speaker 10: I could get lucky. I got into other forms of gambling,
Speaker 10: and then I and then and I really shot myself
Speaker 10: on the foot.
Speaker 1: So it's been very open over the year, you know,
Speaker 1: like having struggles with gambling and trying to find a
Speaker 1: healthy way for it to exist within your life. That
Speaker 1: seems like, I mean, I know that that is such
Speaker 1: a tricky, key thing to have to work through, especially
Speaker 1: if you're living in Vegas.
Speaker 10: Yeah, yeah, like that mental mentally, like like like at
Speaker 10: the time I was, I was thinking about how to
Speaker 10: how do I get back to the to the top
Speaker 10: former glory. But but I realized that that's not a
Speaker 10: good way, that's not a healthy way to look at it.
Speaker 10: You know, I already should be grateful for everything I have,
Speaker 10: so you know why why I want to throw everything away?
Speaker 10: So that's that's that's so that's that's the thought that
Speaker 10: really helped me change.
Speaker 6: Uh uh.
Speaker 10: And then then I decided, okay, what can I do
Speaker 10: now that's gonna be better for me? Well, and then
Speaker 10: I thought, well, you know what, let's help the gambling.
Speaker 10: Let's put aside you now, let's use my math skills
Speaker 10: for to do something good right time, right, right timing.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 10: I had another chance to get back to the sheriff's
Speaker 10: department in l A. And that's why I moved back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the sheriff's department.
Speaker 10: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: How are you doing now? How are you feeling these days?
Speaker 1: You You've come truly full circle in these last twenty years.
Speaker 10: Yes, for sure, I feel very good. And I'm happily
Speaker 10: married now finally. Yeah, after the you know the path
Speaker 10: marriages that didn't quite walk out either. So it's a
Speaker 10: long like you said, full circle, you know. Now Now
Speaker 10: I still do my entertainment. I still do it on
Speaker 10: the side a psychic. It's all good. And then I
Speaker 10: also started a new business, you know, helping helping people
Speaker 10: with insurance. And the primary, you know, motivation for me
Speaker 10: is that I want to know what I'm paying my
Speaker 10: money for.
Speaker 3: This.
Speaker 10: It's America, you know, everybody needs to where is my
Speaker 10: money going? Is this? Why am I what am I
Speaker 10: paying for?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Looking back on twenty years ago, two different questions.
Speaker 1: Do you have any regrets about two thousand and four
Speaker 1: and how has like how you view that period changed
Speaker 1: over time?
Speaker 10: No regrets at all, because in life, could you want
Speaker 10: to make the best decision based on the information you
Speaker 10: know at the time, not later, not before, at the present.
Speaker 10: At that time, I got more than what I could past,
Speaker 10: I could ask for already. I'm very grateful for the experience.
Speaker 10: I feel that experience will will you know it gives
Speaker 10: me a unique healthy perspective. You know how to handle
Speaker 10: adversity no matter what happens, and no matter what happens,
Speaker 10: I feel like I can get back up.
Speaker 1: Looking back at it, It's like the way you were
Speaker 1: treated by the media at different points, It just like
Speaker 1: makes my fist ball up. You're just like you've managed
Speaker 1: everything so beautifully. You've always been yourself, and I just
Speaker 1: it was such a pleasure to talk to you.
Speaker 10: If you want to find out what I'm up to,
Speaker 10: you can find me on Instagram and LinkedIn.
Speaker 1: William hun thank you so much for joining me. This
Speaker 1: was so much fun.
Speaker 10: You're welcome.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much to William hun for his time
Speaker 1: and his openness. I'm incredibly grateful and remain a lifelong fan.
Speaker 1: You can check out what he's up to and all
Speaker 1: of his social media at the links in the description.
Speaker 1: What I really admire about William is his gentleness. His
Speaker 1: essence has remained consistent through the years, even as the
Speaker 1: world judged and built and destroyed all of these different
Speaker 1: narratives around him. Here he is in March two thousand
Speaker 1: and four, just weeks after becoming famous.
Speaker 3: Are you are you good at the civil engineering?
Speaker 10: I'm I'm struggling as well with civil engineering. I'm struggling
Speaker 10: pretty much most of the things I do in my life.
Speaker 10: But no, it's no you got Why you need to,
Speaker 10: why you need to understan all of you to understand,
Speaker 10: is that everybody goes through struggles to succeed.
Speaker 1: Yes, absolute, this was a kid, a twenty one year old,
Speaker 1: thrust into the spotlight and trying to keep things light.
Speaker 1: But there were forces moving against William from the jump.
Speaker 1: His story is singular, and while he doesn't resonate with
Speaker 1: a lot of the narratives pushed onto him. As we
Speaker 1: talked about in our interview anti Asian racism, as well
Speaker 1: as the general brutality of American reality TV. I do
Speaker 1: think they're worth exploring with people who did resonate with
Speaker 1: those narratives. The two thousands was a uniquely fucked time
Speaker 1: for mask off discrimination and exploitation in the public sphere,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to talk to people who have either
Speaker 1: worked in that space or lived through it. And so
Speaker 1: in part two of our William Hung episode, we'll be
Speaker 1: talking to Nancy Wang Yuan and og reality TV editor
Speaker 1: and fan of this very show, Steve Flack. That's next
Speaker 1: week on sixteenth minute, and for your moment of fun,
Speaker 1: the full the necessary. No sex allowed by.
Speaker 12: I'm sitting around modern mobs. Something wrong. I don't know
Speaker 12: what it is. Margareol comes around. She's an upus wretch.
Speaker 12: She starts playing with me or she wants is sex,
Speaker 12: but take it from me. Hear what I say.
Speaker 4: I don't need that. There's a better way.
Speaker 12: So I promise her love as she springs a long course.
Speaker 12: Sex is weak and love is strong. No sex loud.
Speaker 12: I don't want to be part of your crowd.
Speaker 6: No sex so loud, and if.
Speaker 4: You don't like it, get out of town.
Speaker 12: I do the second verse.
Speaker 6: Okay.
Speaker 1: Sixteenth minute is a production of Cool Zone Media and Iheartradia.
Speaker 16: It is written, posted, and produced by me Janie Leftis.
Speaker 16: Our executive producers are Sophie Lickterman and Robert Evans.
Speaker 1: The Amazing Ian Johnson is our supervising producer and our editor.
Speaker 1: Our theme song is bym sat thirteen. Voice acting is
Speaker 1: from Grant Crater and Pet.
Speaker 16: Shout outs to our dog producer Anderson, my cats Flee
Speaker 16: and Casper, and my pet rock Bird, who will outlive
Speaker 16: us all.
Speaker 1: Bye.