Sixteenth Minute (of Fame) - william hung, pt. 1

Episode Date: November 5, 2024

Twenty years ago, William Hung of "She Bangs" American Idol fame became one of the earliest people to straddle traditional media and the internet to become an overnight sensation. A notorious "bad audition" on one of the world's most famous shows, William built a whole career on a mix of positivity and negative attention, remaining firmly himself every step of the way. Warning: this episode contains severe 2004, from Angelfire fan sites to successful prime time TV to early-aughts xenophobia. Buckle in, we're going deep, from William's college days to his TED talks and everywhere in between. This week, Jamie recounts William's story and speaks to the man himself. In part two, we take a closer look at what William's fame meant to Asian Americans, and what it said about the state of reality TV. Follow William here: https://williamhung.net/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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We need to embrace this community. Listen to San Diego FC, Behind the Flow. Hi Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Quozo Media. Hi, I'm Ryan Seacrest. And I'm Brian Dunkelman. And this is the Kodak Theater in Hollywood, home of the Academy Awards, and possibly the most televised theater in the world. Three months from now live on this very stage, and as yet unknown talent will be launched into superstardom.

We don't know who that is yet. Right now, they could be parking cars. or even waiting on tables, who knows? What we do know is by the end of the summer, that person's life will change forever. Because you at home decide who will become the next American Idol. It's June 11, 2002,

and a new show called American Idol has just debuted on Fox. It was competing with some of the biggest shows of the day, although scripted stuff was in reruns by the summer. To set the scene, Frasier, Scrubs, girlfriends, Buffy, small, Bill, Gilmore Girls, on and on.

If you were there, you know, if you don't. You weren't missing out on as much as millennials tell you you were. American Idol's main competition that was airing a new episode was a rival reality show on ABC called The Mole. Ten strangers playing for up to $1 million. Among them, a saboteur, a traitor, the mole. The winner? The one who answers the question, Who is? The Mole.

Oh, is that Anderson Cooper pre-CNN? Yes, it is. And one of the funniest things to me in the world is that Anderson Cooper, iconic Nebo Baby, says that 9-11 woke him up and got him to return to centrist news instead of hosting The Mole. And The Mole, Season 1,

unbeatable reality TV. You can watch it online for free. Anyways, American Idol's path to being on American primetime TV was not smooth. The format was cribbed from popular talent shows from overseas, like Pop Idol in the UK and pop stars in New Zealand. And the guys who made these shows had a big hand in bringing it to the U.S. Producers Simon Fuller and Nigel Lithgow brought it to the States. But Fox Network owner and feminist icon,

Rupert Murdoch wasn't sure that this would play in the U.S., and the show only made it on to the network because his daughter, Elizabeth, had seen Pop Idol in the UK and thought that it would work in America. And boy did it work. American Idol won the night in ratings when it debuted. 9.9 viewers tuned in to the moles 6.9 and a Frasier reruns 7.7 million. Excellent showing from Frasier heads there. Scramble eggs all over my face. The format of the show would be tweaked many times in the years to come.

One of the most major examples is that Ryan Seacrest went on to host Idol for over 20 years, and Brian Dunkelman quit after a season. Whoops. Pop Idol had four judges, but American Idol only managed to get three to commit in time for the show to start taping. And so, we have to have. First up, Grammy Award winner, Randy Jackson. I think the main thing, really, for me, is uniqueness, having a different unique style, a different sounding voice,

and also just having, you know, phenomenal talent. Singer, songwriter, dancer, choreographer, and pop diva legend, Paula Abdul. Well, what did you think? My perspective would be absolutely different from the other two judges because I'm an artist. And the Acid Tongue star of Pop Idol in the UK, Simon Cow. We are going to tell people who cannot sing and who have no talent that they have no talent. And that never makes you popular.

We are going to show the audition process as it really is. Because shows in the past have not shown the brutality of auditions. Auditions are horrible places to go. And I'm warning you now, you are about to enter the audition from hell. Whether you were a viewer or not, Randy Jackson, Paula Abdul, and Simon Cowell are one of the most iconic millennial pop culture trios ever. They were perfectly calibrated for the early 2000s. Paula was the nice one. Randy was the constructive one.

And Simon was evil and sometimes funny. He was evil. And because he was evil, he had a lot of success. The most significant example is less than a decade later, he was one of the inventors of one direction. Do you understand the level of evil that requires? Simon Cowell was the boy conjurer, and his criticism of singers he thought were bad,

weren't just cutting, they could get extremely personal, and were often what people were talking about the next day, even more so than the performances themselves. Yes, you have personal. but dogs have personality. The audition of her being on the shoot was horrible. Here's how the show worked when it aired.

Contestants between 16 and 24 years old were encouraged to come out and audition in droves across the country as the production started to weave through the most talented contestants. Or, as would become clear, the contestants that would play the best on TV. You'll see what I mean. And immediately, American Idol auditions were huge. thousands of contestants would line up outside stadiums across the country.

The record ended up being 20,000 people in Philadelphia in 2007, and hopefuls would be whittled away round after round, and only around 150 people would actually make it to the judges' table. From here, good singers are pushed to something called Hollywood Week. Judges would continue to eliminate contestants through the semifinals, at which point the decision would be turned over to the public. Voting was done first by calling a telephone number, then you could text a vote starting in the second season,

and you couldn't vote online until 2010. And finally, at the end of the season, a winner was announced in a gigantic finale at the Dolby Theater in L.A., and in those early seasons, the prize was massive. A major record deal with as many as six albums, attached, management from idols in-house representatives, and a $250,000 advance. As the show grew less popular, the prizes dwindled down to a potential single and closer to $60,000. If you were around for the early Idol years, you really couldn't avoid it. And the show is turning out genuine

stars. Maybe this is me being nine coming out, but the thrill of seeing Kelly Clarkson demolish one Justin Guarini. The winner of American Idol 2002 is Incredible, and she immediately became one of the biggest pop stars in the world. And sure, that nearly 10 million viewership for the premiere was impressive, but the show gained serious steam throughout that first season. When Kelly Clarkson won, over 22 million people were watching.

And that just doesn't happen anymore on network TV. And thankfully, Kelly Clarkson is here with us to this day. We love her. She's a legend. This success continued for American Idol into its second season, which featured the very wholesome rivalry between Ruben Stuttered and Clay Aiken, Remember them? The winner of American Idol 2003 is Ruben Stuttered.

Ruben Studdered eventually won, but they both went on to find mild success separately. But in a twist that I love, they found even more success when they continued working together. Since they were on American Idol, Ruben and Clay have done a Christmas show together on Broadway. Hi, I'm Ruben Stuttered. And he's the person that lost to Rubin's And we're talking about Rubin and Clay's first annual Christmas Carol Family Fun Pageant Spectacular Reunion Show I mean you gotta love them

The two toured together for the 20-year anniversary of their original competition on Idol and recently appeared on The Masked Singer as two Beets B-E-E-T-S, like the vegetable 20 years after they met They appeared as the vegetable beats on the mask singer, singing a Michael Boubleau cover. If you don't believe me, it sounds beautiful.

But I can't stress enough, they are dressed as glamorous root vegetables. But when Rubin and Clay were competing on Idol back in 2003, this was even bigger than Kelly Clarkson's moment. 38 million people watched the finale that year when Rubin Stuttered won. That's twice as many people who watched the Oscars this past year. American Idol was a star-making vehicle. The early winners and runners-up became household names, and many had real staying power. In case you forgot, names like Jennifer Hudson, Carrie Underwood, Jordan Sparks, Adam Lambert, David Archelletta, and Catherine McPhee were all Idol contestants.

And it's not hard to understand why American Idol was such a major force. We can talk all day about how reality TV was really starting to boom around this time. But I think the simplest explanation is that this show literally narrativeized the American dream. Most of these contestants were young people from the middle of nowhere, and the show really leaned into that. In classic reality TV fashion, the most promising contestants would be framed adoringly as talented kids with big dreams. Like, it's impossible to not root for these people based on how the show frames them. Hello, Kelly. Hello.

How old are you? I'm a big fan of you, by the way. I'm 20. I just turned 20 this April. Oh, well, happy birthday. Paul Baines. And by the third season of American Idol, audiences were well aware. that the show was not a fluke. But as I recall,

there was more than one type of American Idol viewer. There were the people who watched every single episode and obsessively called and texted in their votes for their favorite people in the later rounds,

and there were people who were mainly in to watch the auditions. I was one of those. And if you don't watch for the good auditions, and you won't, you were watching for the terrible auditions.

Weirdly, we talked about this phenomenon recently on 16th minute. People who first experienced their 15 minutes of fame after being shown in some public freak show style setting. And that is kind of what we're looking at here. People who were not good, and it was unclear in the way American Idol framed them if they knew they weren't good. but here they are being paraded on national television

so that the famous three judges can confirm that they are indeed not very good. These kinds of contestants range from people who actually do think they are very talented singers to people who just kind of seem to want to be on TV for whatever reason, whether it's personal gain or just attention. And as we now know, this is a kind of person, someone who would want to appear on as many reality TV shows as possible, but at the time this wasn't quite as understood. So the contestants on Idol who were bad were framed as completely delusional.

I want to be the next American Idol, and I want to make it to Hollywood, and it's been my all-time dream for a long time to become a big, famous singer and performer. And this is just one way to do it if I make it. All right, I'll see that. Something I can't tell you. Thank you.

An elementary school, Jamie, was not alone in reveling in a bad audition. They were so popular that Fox would air entire specials around them. During season one, they aired something called the good, the bad, and the ugly, a whole special about auditions. And while a bad audition would occasionally make for conversation at the water cooler, something that allegedly happened, it wasn't until season three of Idol that, at least for a time, one bad audition overshadowed the eventual winner.

And the winner that season is incredible and thankfully is successful to, this day. It was Fantasia Burino, and she was nominated for an Oscar last year. But for a time, the most famous person to be on Idol in 2004 was someone who never made it to Hollywood Week. And you can tell how you're supposed to feel about the audition, based on how this contestant's introduction is edited. For comparison, here is how we meet eventual winner Fantasia. Even 19-year-old Fantasia Marino can predict how the judges will react. I predict that Randy's going to like wait years. Paula, I think she's going to like, but I think I'm going to have a little trouble out of salmon, but I'm ready for salmon.

I'm ready for salmon. And here is how we meet the subject of this week's 16th minute. The producers, cast, and crew would like to express their great. gratitude to engineering student William Hung for showing up and shaking his bonbon. William. Yes. Talk to me. Tell me your name.

You blow me off like it's all the same. You lit it fierce and I'm taking away like it bomb. Yeah, baby. She banks, she banks. Oh, baby, when she moves, she moves. William Hung, your 16th minute starts now. I'm not so bad when you turn up the lights by now I can be perfect all in a time

to make me a start let's take it too far and give me one moment six minute of fame 60 minute of fame 16th minute a place One more minute at me Welcome to 16th minute,

The podcast where we take a look at the internet's main. how their moment affected them and what it says about us and the internet. And this week, we're talking about someone I consider to be the patron saints of main characters, William Hong. And just a heads up, this is going to be a two-part episode because there is a lot going on in this story. Not only does it take place at a time where the internet was still catching on in terms of being a part of shaping our minds and television, but it happened over two decades ago and intersects with how turn of the century reality TV framed people,

particularly in this case Asian Americans and immigrants. The She Bangs moment lives on in infamy, but I want to take special attention towards that issue specifically in the second part of this episode to examine where it fell in the history, of cruelty and antipathy towards Asian men in Western media. But for all intents and purposes, the subject of this story, William Hung himself,

rejects a lot of the popular narratives around his legacy. So for part one of this episode, I'm going to tell you the story of William Hung as it rolled out in real time. And then we'll chat. And in next week, in part two, we'll take a look at some of these narratives, ones that intersect with anti-Asian racism, and how American reality TV can be uniquely debauchous.

And this story is a real throwback, so buckle in and come with me, if you dare, to 2004. Ooh, this year was formative for me. George W. Bush became president again and didn't even need. need to lie about it this time. A movie I consider critical to my personality, Joel Schumacher's Phantom of the Opera, starring Gerard Butler as the Phantom, in the actual worst vocal performance of 2004, comes out. Your eyes let your spirit start to soul. And William Hung becomes the most famous American Idol contestant of all time for a quote-unquote bad audition at the

beginning of the summer just as school was getting out. And our relationship to the internet was very particular at this time. To set the scene, this is a year where MySpace was the most popular social media site. It was the year that Facebook launched in a strange Zuckerbergian horny experiment. It was before YouTube even existed. Blogs and message boards are the norm. Blogger and Friendster and Mozilla Firefox and Confessions by Usher are playing at a dance. The top shows around Idol on TV were CSI, lost, desperate housewives, survivor, and everybody loves Raymond. And reality TV specifically was having a huge moment. What constitutes reality,

TV is pretty nebulous, but it has been around in some form since TV has existed, beginning with candid camera coming from radio to TV in the late 1940s, then giving way to early dating shows like the dating game in the 60s. Televised talent shows became more popular in the 80s, with That's Incredible, debuting on ABC in the 80s and Cops, the most sinister reality show of all time, starting up in 1989. But I think most people consider the start of contemporary reality. shows with MTV's The Real World in 1992. Then in the late 90s into the early 2000s, the debauchorous contest-based shows began to take off. Survivor started in 2000, then Big Brother, then Fear Factor, and on and on.

The Bachelor premiered less than three months before American Idol. And this was just in the U.S. Again, Idol was a direct rip-off of two different international talent shows. And it kind of scratched the itch of a wide range of genres. It had the exploitative, luring character study of everyday people as in Survivor, while also having the polish of an old school star search set up. And yes, while it took idle creator Simon Fuller a little bit of pixie dust to sell Fox on the value of the show, it wasn't a shock that it did well.

It was literally cooked in a lab to do well. Here's some initial reception of the show in the New York Daily News, two days after the premiere. Fox's music talent search series, American Idol, is looking like the first new hit of the summer. American Idol also demonstrates the unpredictability of summer reality shows. Several weeks ago, Fox introduced Looking for Love, Bachelorettes in Alaska,

in which five women will select a husband from 50 eligible men. But audiences haven't bothered to watch. And not for nothing, I would have watched that, shit pronto, put it in a syringe for Jamie. But you get the idea. American Idol blew up at a time where reality TV was just becoming a fixture of American life. But how do we get from here to William Hung, nearly two years after the show's debut? Well, here's what you need to know about William, and I'll let him expand in our interview. William was born in Hong Kong in 1982 and then moved to the L.A. area, Van Nuys to my local heads, with his family when he was 11. This is where he

spent his adolescence, and he enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley to study civil engineering. And it's here in the early 2000s that William learns that American Idol is holding auditions in nearby San Francisco in September 2003 when he's 20 years old. I'll let him tell the story of auditioning in more detail, but it boils down to this. William had a good sense of humor about himself, he enjoyed pop music, and he was familiar with American Idol, because everyone was. And so he auditions. He gets through the general round, he gets through the producer round, and he keeps on getting

through, until he's told on the second day of auditioning that he will be presented to Randy, Simon, and Paula themselves. The gods have agreed to meet with him. But before we get to the audition itself, A lot of people I spoke to about this episode were kind of surprised at how early William Hung became a sensation in American Idol's run. And I can't help but agree. There were only a few other contestants who I remembered, but no one like William. In fact, the only other two contestants I remembered clearly as having bad auditions were from 2008 and 2010.

First, pants on the ground. Pants on the ground. Pants on the ground. Looking like a fool with your pants on the ground. And especially, no sex allowed. So I promise her love as she strings along because sex is weak and love is strong. Ooh! No sex allowed.

I don't want to be part of your crowd. And you can see from these examples alone, neither of these guys are good singers. But that's not exactly the point, is it? There's plenty of bad singers that auditioned for shows. These people are good TV and lean into, in some cases, religious and racialized tropes that Americans would be familiar with and do not challenge them whatsoever. But that's not because the contestants embody these fictional tropes.

It's because that's how they're framed. And it's here that I want to take you on a divergent journey. A tale of two auditions, if you will. because when William Hung's audition airs, he becomes an overnight star, one of the earliest people to straddle the worlds of traditional media and word of mouth and the power of the internet. And this reaction and legacy has a lot to do with William himself, but also has to do with how we're conditioned to see him based on how the show frames him.

So here is Path One, the aired audition. We're going to fast forward the singing because you know what it sounds like. But we have found the next key. What's your name? My name is Ryan. Oh, nice to meet you. Nice to see you, buddy. Let me tell you what I'm going to sing.

I was singing Ricky Martin, she bangs. She bangs. Yes. It's a good song, so, but either I really do well by lighting up the stage. Right. Or I don't. The producers, cast, and crew would like to express their gratitude to engineering student, William Hung, for showing up and shaking his bonbon. William.

Yes. Talk to me. Tell me your name. You blow me off like it's all the same. I'm wasted by the way shoe. You can't sing, you can't dance. So what do you want me to say? You know, I have no professional training of singing.

No. We didn't believe it either. For this surprise of the century. This whole segment is a little over a minute. We meet William. We learn he's an engineering student. and we see him bomb. Paula does an awkward, encouraging dance,

and Randy covers his face with a napkin to hide the fact that he's laughing. Behind William, the faces of Ruben stuttered and Kelly Clarkson loom. And if you've seen the audition, and I know you have, William is dancing kind of awkwardly along with the music before he's stopped by Simon.

And then he is summarily rejected by the gods. And that's the clip. But that's a lot to happen in the space of a minute, and it speaks to the economical way that American Idol editors and producers condensed 10,000 auditions into a single episode of television to get a public reaction. And boy, was there a public reaction.

But before we get there and forge ahead into Williams' career, I want to bring you to that second path. The one where Williams' audition wasn't, compressed into 70 seconds and gives far more insight into why William has come to audition in the first place. So here's Pathway 2, a segment from the five-minute cut of William's audition. I grew up in Los Angeles, California. I originally born from Hong Kong, so I've been here in the United States for 10 years. And I'm currently studying at UC Berkeley right now. It's kind of odd, like why I chose to even audition the first place, because

My major is super engineering, which is not totally not related to music. But I really like music. I want to make music my living. He expands a little more in the preamble with the judges. William, why are you here? I'm here to sing to America. To sing for America. Okay, all right, let's try it again. I'm here for opportunity to sing to America.

Because you think you could be the next... American Idol. Absolutely. Why? Because I'm singing from my heart. I might not be the best singer around the world, but I know that I sing from my heart, and I put every bit of energy into it.

Really? Yes. What's your last name? Hung, H-U-N-G. Hung? Yes. Do you have brothers and sisters? No, I don't.

I'm the only child. You're the only child? Yes. Do your parents tell you you have a great voice? No, they don't realize it, actually. They don't realize it yet? No, because when I was young, my parents, My parents liked to sing karaoke.

I was there with them and sing with them as a hobby. And what do they do when you sing with them? What did I do? What did they do? What did they do? What did they do? They thought I'm okay. They thought I have a chance of, you know, making it to the next level.

And again, there's a lot more information you get here. He acknowledges he's not the best singer. And look, why is he here if he knows that? The age-old question of reality TV returns. And you get more from the judges when William finishes. And Simon Cowell really turns the knife, as you might expect. William, it's one of actually the worst auditions we've had this year, if I'm being honest. Seriously.

I mean, everything about it was grotesque. Oh, stop it. Not grotesque. It was. Stop it. You can't sing, you can't dance. So what do you want me to say? I already gave my best, and I have no regrets at all.

Good for you. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's the best attitude yet. All right.

So, Randy, yes or no? No, William, you're not good enough for this, dude. But at least you came here, you had a good time. You had fun, right? Yes. You did your thing, baby. And we had fun watching you. Okay.

Thank you so much for coming down. William, go and do some homework. Ultimately, I think this longer cut makes the judges seem even crueler. Cowell's saying grotesque about William in particular, something that Randy and Paula to people with more humanity who happen to be people of color immediately protest to.

And this clip further asked the question of how William feels about his own ability. In one breath he says he knows he isn't great and the next he says he knows he can make a living as a singer and it's his dream. But it's this moment. You can't sing, you can't dance.

So what do you want me to say? I already gave my best and I have no regrets at all. That I feel sums William up the best. No matter what others say, he has no regrets. Contrast this with how this is presented in the first broadcast. You can't sing, you can't dance. So what do you want me to say?

You know, I have no professional training of singing. No. Where an unrelated response from William is spliced in, in no small part, I think, to make him seem more delusional. Like, he thinks they were so blown away by his performance that they would be impressed by his lack of training. And while awkward, this is how that response actually comes up in the full clip.

No, William, you're not good enough for this, dude. But at least you came here, you had a good time, you had fun, right? Yes. You did your thing, baby. And we had fun watching you. Okay. Thank you so much for coming down. Williams, go and do some homework.

Okay. We won't tell your parents that you missed two days. to school, okay? Yeah. No, you know, I have no professional training of singing. No. So the context is actually quite different. He's speaking more defensively after being roundly rejected,

almost offering an explanation for the performance instead of the edit we see, where he's positioned as being almost arrogant about it. This is the nature of reality TV, and it's prompted endless discussion since the early 2000s. Today, I think it's far more normal to assume what you're watching on reality TV isn't real than is. But in the early 2000s, that built-in skepticism wasn't fully formed. And it wasn't unusual to take things like that at face value. These days, you have examples like Love is Blind contestants suing their network for plying them with alcohol and misrepresenting them in the edit while paying them very little. But honestly, if you made

those same complaints 20 years ago, the understanding of how these shows were built and profited from wasn't really well understood enough to build meaningful empathy for any of their participants. And so, William is presented to the world as this William, Pathway One. The producers, cast, and crew would like to express their gratitude to engineering student, William Hung, for showing up and shaking his bonbon. And it's this version of William that first becomes a viral sensation. But not necessarily overnight. It takes mainstream media outlets a few days before they start to jump on to the William train. But once it starts, it's unstoppable.

The Asian boy came in and, of course, he goes by William Hong, Abdul says, beginning to giggle like a kid on the first day of gym class. On his list were two songs, and he said, I'll sing God bless America, and the second song was She Bangs. What a remarkable American Idol discovery. In a nutshell, if you turn Clay Aiken inside out, you would discover William. American Idol executive producer Nigel Lithgow admits that they are anxious to get the Bay Area Belter back for a mid-series special tentatively titled Uncut, Uncensored, and Untalented. Yes, William became a sensation.

to his bafflement because he'd auditioned four months earlier and had no indication of how his segment had been edited. And if you don't know, that's just kind of how reality TV works to this day, unless you're a cast member who's also a credited producer or otherwise involved in the production. So William confirmed to me that when he auditioned, he signed a release form that basically meant he had no control over how much or, if any, of his audition would appear in the final cut. He's signing over the footage of his likeness and effectively, all authorial control of how we meet him.

But this story didn't move at the speed most stories do today. William takes a little while to start meaningfully engaging with the sensation. And I think if it happened now, the ship might have already sailed. But media in 2004 moved a little slower. There were waves in which William

became more popular, giving American Idol producers time to respond to and gauge what to do with his popularity. Producer Nigel Lithgow commented in something called Zap To It News in mid-February, nearly a month after William's audition aired. I don't know what the future holds. He's going to be called to do things, and if he's happy to do them, that's great. He shouldn't give up Berkeley. Obviously, he's an extremely intelligent guy and realizes that this.

could be his five minutes of fame. Mm-hmm, potent phrase, salient phrase. In the immediate aftermath of the she-bangs audition, there was buzz in the news and online, but part of the reason we're still talking about him now is because Hung eventually became amenable to all this attention. This appears to have happened sometime in the first month after the audition aired,

because Hung was rejecting appearance requests at first. At the end of February, Hung turned down a chance to headline the halftime show of a pro lacrosse team in Philadelphia, citing the need to focus on his studies as the reason. He was doing the occasional interview in the first month, but certainly not dropping his life entirely. From an entertainment to night piece from February 10th. I wasn't expecting this media exposure. I think it's a bit overwhelming. It's also a little bit surprising because I didn't expect this. overwhelming fan base.

I don't know. I'm really not sure about this, but it seems positive. As William talks about in our interview, the amount of protracted attention he was receiving became difficult to resist. And not strictly because of attention either. There was money in this, and people weren't growing less interested in him.

But again, this fervent kind of attention cuts a number of different ways, because it's in response to a fundamental mentally dishonest version of how William first responded during that audition. And in a truly archaic internet landscape, early fan sites for him started to emerge, both genuine and ironic. But before we look at those, can I just say, combing through early 2000s fan sites nearly induced an epileptic attack in me.

So much neon, so many flashing gifts. Just a complete misunderstanding of proper line spacing and fonts, awful. You're welcome. Because make no mistake, there was a vital internet community around William, one that became impossible for both him and American Idol to ignore. On the earnest side, there was billyhung.com, a site that aimed to raise money to help William record an album. They said,

While William may not have the raw talent that the judges were looking for, America sees something different. William Hung, in some small way, represents each of us and how we strive to reach our dreams, ignoring all the naysayers on the way. If William succeeds in reaching his dream, this will teach all of us that we can reach any potential we set our mind to reach. If he doesn't achieve his goals, perhaps it is America, and not William, that has failed. And on the other side, the mocking sights with the same terrible blinking lights. Most notably, savewilliamhung.com. They say this. We asked him to put down the microphone and step away from the stage, but William Hung wouldn't listen.

When the music stops, Will is going to wake up to a cruel reality. People haven't been laughing with him. They've been laughing at him. Will's wild ride is going to come to a very lonely end by the end of the year. You'll probably laugh. Then feeling guilty, you'll say, oh well, we believe Will is going to need some serious psychological counseling. So we're collecting donations. This was matched with increasing mainstream attention,

which I will summarize through this god-awful Jimmy Fallon impression on SNL. A trigger warning for everything. Let me just say I have no professional training and music. Talk to me, tell me your name. You blow me off like it's all the same. She's back, she's back. Uh-huh, uh-huh. But the main website that launched him as an online personality

was done by a couple named Don and Lerner, Laura Chin, and their site, William Hung.net, got over 4 million hits the first week of its launch. Add that to an online petition with 100,000 signatures to send Hung to Hollywood in late February 2004 over a month after his appearance, and neither Idol nor Hung could ignore it any longer. They wanted him back. And remember that audition special Nigel Lithgow mentioned earlier? they did that in early March 2004. But unlike the season one audition special,

these auditions were all bad. Uncut, uncensored, untalented. They brave the auditions. They brave the brutal critiques of the judges. Tonight, you brave their performances live in person. Was the panel wrong to keep them in the dark? Or do they belong on this stage? Uncut, uncensored, but untalented, you watch, you decide.

It's wild. The opening of this special pans across people who did poorly in the auditions and brings them back for an hour of prime time entertainment. Posted by Ryan Seacrest wearing a suit jacket with a T-shirt and jeans. Come on. And William, of course, is the best, saved for last on this show. the guy has gotten over seven million hits on his fan website once an anonymous face in a crowded holding room this man's life has changed beyond compare once he walked the campus of berkeley alone now he needs a police escort to make it to his civil engineering classes once merely a number his name is

now legend across the country. Even Jimmy Fallon paid homage to William on Saturday Night Live. He's the latest American singing sensation. I get recognized everywhere. It's kind of difficult to get around without getting recognized, I guess. His banging puts even Ricky Martin to shame. He is hung. And as you can hear, the internet is cited as a big reason he's

held on to all this attention. William is a celebrity who straddles time and technology. He's really only getting his due six weeks after he first appeared, but the internet is a crucial part of this success. But it's still framed as kind of a joke. Good to see you. Wow. Your life is completely changed, huh? Yeah, I can believe it.

Yeah. Neither can we. So it's pretty. indisputable that William Hung is the reason that this special happened at all. And if there's any clearer indication of how famous he was becoming, it was rumored that a Clay Aiken special was postponed to make room for uncut, uncensored, untalented. Being famously bad could be more profitable than being famously good. But I love Clay Aiken. Invisible is my go-to karaoke show, and it hasn't brought the house down once.

Things had changed for William at this point. Hi Will. Hi. I heard that you were offered a record deal. Is it true? Yes, it is. And what did you decide to do? Did you take that? I'm still looking over the small details.

Oh, yes. So what, you have an agent now? I'm getting somebody to walk on it. My dad, again, agents. I mean, I'm trying to walk on it. It's Team Hung. All right. Yeah, it's, I mean, those are, I mean, contrasts are very serious deals.

Yes. And those are, so they require attention. That's true. And the record he's talking about here was very real and recorded absurdly fast. Just a month after this special aired, William's album was out on April 6, 2004, and it was titled Inspiration. Like you heard in the primetime interview, the album carefully projects Hung's image. inspirational in the no-regrette sense, but still clearly pushing him to look silly. Of course, it leads with the She Bang's cover,

and the rest are kind of randomized covers with really basic karaoke tracks behind them. With respect to William, it sounds like an album that was recorded in a weekend, because it was. He covers Eagles. He covers Elton John And I'm going to be hard As a Kai by then And of course the album can't be complete Without the YMCA

It's fun to stay at the YMCA It's fun to stay at the YMCA Interwoven into this were these don't give up to Enjoy Interwoven into this were these Zen-like monologues that fed in to Williams

Don't Give Up persona Even with a lot of talent in singing Even with a lot of talent in whatever you choose to do You still have to put in this hard work And you need that determination And perseverance, not to give up. And was this album reviewed well?

No, of course not. But by the end of April, it had broken the top 30 in the country with over 40,000 sales. And it would go on to move 200,000. William got paid a $25,000 advance to record the album, which you don't need me to tell you is a life-changing amount of money, especially for a college student. And so he decided to take a step back from school while he explored. whatever this was. But this didn't come without its fair share of criticism, particularly among Asian writers and critics

who couldn't help it feel uncomfortable with the way that William was being positioned by the media. Emil Guillermo wrote for S.F. Gate in April 2004, When I first saw Hong Kong-born UC Berkeley engineering student William Hung sing that Ricky Martin song on Fox's American Idol last January, January, I tried to ignore it. But after Hung's humiliation, there came a nice outpouring of sympathy for the rejected puppy dog. Here was an accented Asian American with bad hair, bad teeth, bad moves, and a bad accent. And even though he can't sing, America still loved him.

Certainly, there'd be no shortage of worthy candidates for Hung-like stardom. Regular, American Idol viewers know tons of good singers that have been rejected and abused by the show's Simon Cowell. The difference here, Hung, is Asian American, and the accented foreigner gag is still considered acceptable schick in modern comedy, at least when it comes to Asian Americans. As Asian Americans, we look through this racial lens, and we see this guy who embodies all these stereotypes we're trying to escape from, said James Howe, a documentary filmmaker who explored Asian American male sexuality in Masters of the Pillow. And we will be talking about this

more in-depth next week, but this conversation is obviously very relevant then and now, and something that William has spoken on for two decades, including in our interview. And the rest of 2004 becomes a complete whirlwind for him. There is this very 2000s music video to accompany his Shebangs cover. There's a vanity documentary called Hangin' With Hung. And in old school fashion, he goes on this extensive late-night tour

to promote the album. As cast is best-known, his rendition of Ricky Martin She-Bangs at the Fox American Idol audition. Since then, has become an overnight pop cultural phenomenon, ladies gentlemen. Here is tonight performing, yes, that very song.

from his debut CD inspiration. Please welcome William Hung, ladies'all men. And by May 2004, William Hung is one of the top acts in the country, performing at Wango Tango at the Rose Bowl over a week before Fantasia Burino actually won season three of American Idol. The other acts at Wango Tango Tango this year,

buckle in, were Outcast, Ashley Simpson, the Backstreet Boys, Hillary and Haley Duff, Fee Fee Dobson, oh my God, the Pussycat Dolls, nerd Janet Jackson, the Black Eyed Peas, and I could keep going. It was 2004, and William Hung had made it. But things started to slow down a little after season three of American Idol wrapped up. He made bank with ads for Jack in the Box, singular wireless. and ask Jeeves, but by late summer, the attention appeared to be slipping. In August, the Contra Costa Times said William was, quote,

still hanging on to his 15 minutes, unquote, by taking his act to Singapore. Then he released a second album in 2004 called Hung for the Holidays, that didn't go over quite as well as inspiration. And thingsy sidewalks, dressed in holiday style, in the air there's a... And things never again really reached the heights that they had for William in 2004, with year-end list declaring, William hung around for a long time. From here, William becomes a popular reference, but was unlikely to make those big wango-tango appearances he once did, particularly after his third and final album, Miracle, Happy Summer from

William Hung, failed to make waves in 2005. Because the sun is shining all the time. Just like another perfect day. I love L.A. We love it! Fan sites are updated less frequently, and then not at all. He makes a few cameos here and there, most notably in Arrested Development in 2006, if you know you know.

Well, it looks like we've got a mistrial, but on the plus side, we've also got a hung jury. Hit it. But William was soon down to private appearances and gigs. A 2006 clipping said he charged $4,000 to play your holiday party. He'd made appearances at baseball games. He was declared the Artichoke King, question mark. The list goes on. And by the end of the 2000s, he seemed to just be scraping by.

And the whole ditching college for entertainment thing didn't seem like the right choice anymore. So it was time to return to school and get a day job. Even in the midst of a surprise cameo on Idol in 2010, because keep in mind, William is consistent in having no bad blood with the show. He then made a try of it as a high school math teacher for a time, something he references in his TED talks. Because for some reason, if you're a 16th minute character, you will somehow end up with a TED talk. He talks about his

experience teaching here. But then when I asked the students to do the math problems, they refused. Could it be my thinking? Then, my master teacher gestured to me to get out of class. He said, William, if you keep this up, I will fail you. He had to take over the class for the rest of the day. When I went home, I cried because I felt like that was one of the most embarrassing moments in my life. like getting booed off the stage.

And look, anyone teaching high schoolers is 5,000 times braver than me. I would never. After teaching high school, William went back to school as a student, finishing his degree in math at Cal State Northridge in 2010, then getting a master's degree, and he's now working on a second master's degree. After he flunked out as a teacher, he became a data analyst for the despised,

L.A. County Sheriff's Department, leading me to the crucial question, does ACAB include William Hung? Very possibly. He then goes over to the Department of Public Health, then more recently, back to the Sheriff's Department. William, I just want to talk. But through all this, William keeps up with his public profile. There's the TED Talks in the 2010s, and there's his on and off. career as a celebrity poker player. So obviously the dream for a lot of people is to end up playing professionally. And I feel like you've done a lot of cool things in your life. You got to sing, you got to travel the world and perform for people. So what would it feel like to reach that level of being able to play poker professionally? I think it'll be awesome because if I can do that, like some of the tournament professionals, like get to travel across the world, do charity like you, that would be fantastic. And this poker side hustle started as a hobby and began to tumble into gambling addiction, which Hung as said contributed to the end of his first marriage.

In 2024, at the beginning of his making the press rounds for the 20th anniversary of the She Bangs audition, he shared about recovering from gambling addiction. This is from a talk with People magazine. I knew I was good at poker, but then I got greedy. I got into sports betting, the whole gamut. I know better now. I wasn't supposed to do those things, but I did it anyway, and I paid for it. I got divorced, and I learned I had to be smart about which risks I chose to take.

But through all of this, over the course of 20 years, William's message has remained consistent, even as he's had to contend with all of this criticism, exploitation, and even addiction. He's an extremely resilient person and very kind. And when we come back, I'm speaking with the man himself, William M.F. Hung. A foot washed up a shoe with some bones in it. They had no idea who it was. Most everything was burned up pretty good from the fire that not a whole lot was salvageable. These are the coldest of cold cases.

but everything is about to change. Every case that is a cold case that has DNA right now in a backlog will be identified in our lifetime. A small lab in Texas is cracking the code on DNA. Using new scientific tools, they're finding clues in evidence so tiny you might just miss it. He never thought he was going to get caught, and I just looked at my computer screen.

I was just like, ah, gotcha. On America's crime lab, we'll learn about victims and survivors, And you'll meet the team behind the scenes at Othrum, the Houston Lab that takes on the most hopeless cases to finally solve the unsolvable. Listen to America's Crime Lab on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What would you do if one bad decision forced you to choose between a maximum security prison or the most brutal boot camp designed to be hell on earth? Unfortunately for Mark Lombardo, this was the choice he faced. He said, you are a number, a New York State number, and we own you. Shock incarceration, also known as boot camps, are short-term, highly regimented correctional programs that mimic military basic training.

These programs aim to provide a shock of prison life, emphasizing strict discipline, physical training, hard labor, and rehabilitation programs. Mark had one chance to complete this program and had no idea of the hell awaiting. him the next six months. The first night was so overwhelming and you don't know who's next to you. And we didn't know what to expect in the morning. Nobody tells you anything. Listen to shock incarceration on the IHeartRadio

app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The OGs of Uncensored Motherhood are back and badder than ever. I'm Erica. And I'm Mila. And we're the host of the Good Mom's Bad Choices podcast brought to you by the Black Effect Podcast Network every Wednesday. Historically, men talk

Too much. And women have quietly listened. And all that stops here. If you like witty women, then this is your tribes. With guests like Corinne Steffens. I'd never seen so many women protect predatory men. And then me too happened. And then everybody else wanted to get pissed off because the white said it was okay.

Problem. My oldest daughter, her first day in ninth grade, and I called to ask how I was going. She was like, oh, dad, all they were doing was talking about your thing in class. I ruined my baby's first day of high school. And slumflower. What turns me on is when a man sends me money. Like, I feel the moisture between my legs when the man sends me money. I'm like, oh my God, it's go time.

You actually sent it? Listen to the Good Mom's Bad Choices podcast every Wednesday on the Black Effect Podcast Network. The IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you go to find your podcast. We all know, right? Genius is evenly distributed. Opportunity is not. It's Black Business Month and Black Tech Green Money is tapping in. I'm Will Lucas spotlighting Black founders, investors, and investors.

innovators building the future one idea at a time. Let's talk legacy, tech, and generational wealth. I don't think any person of any gender, race, ethnicity should alter who they are, especially on an intellectual level or a talent level, to make someone else feel comfortable just because they are the majority in this situation and they need employment. So for me, I'm always going to be honest in saying that we need to be unapologetically ourselves. If that makes me a vocal CEO and people consider that rocking the boat, so be. To hear this and more on the power of black innovation and ownership, listen to Black Tech Green Money from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Don't let biased algorithms or degree screens or exclusive professional networks or stereotypes.

Don't let anything keep you from discovering the half of the workforce who are stars. Workers skilled through alternative routes rather than a bachelor's degree. It's time to tear the paper ceiling and see the stars beyond it. Find out how you can make stars part of your talent strategy at tear the paper sealing.org. Brought to you by opportunity at work in the ad council. Welcome back to 16th minute. When American Idol debuted, I was in elementary school and was so inspired to also become, my pop star like Kelly Clark said, that I went to audition to sing the national anthem at a minor,

minor league baseball game in my city, in spite of the fact that I was paralyzingly shy. And guess what, bitch, I got the gig. Wearing what I now realize were somewhat culturally insensitive twisties and a Walmart shirt that said, All-American Girl, I sang the national anthem to 4,000 people, and I was fine. Take off your hat and stand, or don't, because America's not a respectable place. But listen to Baby Jamie. Oh, so can you sing by the don't turn to be a night for the man of the feet and the home of the grave. Okay, a little pitchy.

dog at the end, but good for her. She's got a big future in radio. And today, we are revisiting the saga of William Hung. And I say, why not just cut to the chase and let's talk to the man himself. So without further ado, here is my interview with the one and only William Hong. Hi, everyone. This is William Hung. You probably know me from my American Idol audition back in 2004. It was a very unique audition. I sang the song by Ricky Martin Shebangs. The definitive performance of that song, with all due respect to Ricky Martin. Thank you so much for doing this. I'm so excited to talk to you. You're welcome. It's the 20th anniversary of your audition originally airing and there were some pieces and some interviews with you. What is it like

to reflect on that moment. I can't believe the time went by so fast. Before we get into talking about American Idol and reflecting on that, tell me a little bit about yourself. Where did you grow up? How did you grow up? Who were you at the time of this audition?

Well, I used to enjoy singing karaoke when I was very young, around 10 years old, with my parents. And then something that people might not know about me is that I geek out on video games and math. I'm very good at video games. I'm very good at math. Actually, you know, whenever I put my heart into,

I feel like I can get to the top. That was my mentality. Yeah. Like when I play Pokemon trading card game when I was younger, I made it all the way to the World Championships. Wait, tell me about that. Yeah.

So, you know, I started playing casually with my friends, you know, in school, and then I competed in local tournaments, and then I just walked my way up, you know, city level, state level, world level. It's like, I can't believe it. Oh, my God. Wait, how old were you when you were doing those tournaments? Like, I think it's the high school college years before American Idol, yeah. Where were the world championships? Did you travel to compete? Like, what did you do?

Yeah, I remember the world championships was in San Diego, in California. So it's not too far, but it was definitely a memory I would never forget. So you're very passionate. When you like something, you like it hard. Yes. What were your go-to games growing up? Oh, I love Super Mario Brothers, Tetris. I played a lot of role-playing games, like Zelda, Final Fantasy.

That's so cool that you did it with your, that it was like a family activity too. What were your parents and families' go-to songs? Oh, they like the older Chinese songs. I wasn't used to listening to American pop music. I only took it up on myself after I started in college. I went to civil engineering, to study at Berkeley. And I thought everything would be good because high school was easy for me. But in college, no, not so easy.

I was struggling, I almost got kicked out of school, and I figured, okay, well, I need to try something else. Yeah. One day, I saw this poster for a school talent show. At UC Berkeley? Yes, and I started watching and studying the music videos from Ricky Martin online. It was just like a way of kind of like getting out of your head and putting yourself out there. Yeah, I mean, I had no expectation.

I started a talent show. I thought, well, let's see what happens. And then somehow, to my. a prize. I won. I won a DVD player. That's such an early 2000s prize. And what did you sing? Did you sing She Bangs at the talent show? Yes. I'm curious a little bit if you don't mind getting into it. High school, you were in the, was it the Van Nuys area once you moved? Yes. And then when did you move to the U.S. originally? Long time ago. Like, like 1993, maybe. Yeah. Okay, so you're like an elementary. Entry. So high school is kind of a breeze. What changes in college? Is it just the adjustment? Was it the program you're in? Like, yeah, take me through that a little bit.

I think the part of it is that I feel like it's harder to find the support. Because in the beginning, I didn't know where to find the support. I was getting by. I was passing, but I wasn't doing great. I struggle. My foundation was not very good. And then eventually I need to get some help, you know, from my peers, from tutors. I found a way, you know, I found a way around it, but I got through it, but it's still not the same. Because maybe in high school, it was easier to get that, you know, A. Right, yeah, totally. In college, it's so different. So you do this talent show, you perform Shebangs, you win, you've got the DVD player. What happens next?

A few days later, I heard on the news that they have American Idol auditions coming to San Francisco. I decided it was a good time to try. Were you a fan of the show at the time? I wasn't sure. I didn't know what some of the auditions looked like. I felt like it was either very good or very bad, and I knew that Simon Cowell was the mean guy. Randy is the wild card,

and then Paula was going to be a nice lady. Tell me about the experience of auditioning, because I know that now understanding how reality TV is edited, which I didn't at the time. The experience of auditioning, and then we'll talk about the edit that was released. But what was the audition experience like? Well, they asked me more questions. They asked me why I want to audition, what makes me think I could become the next American Idol.

And for the listeners, you can look at the extended audition online. How does the day go? You stand in line You sit down In the bench It was at a baseball park So I waited for my turn Along with thousands of people

But when I got close to my turn I was lucky I only had to wait for a few hours But I was watching all these people In front of me They only got like 15 seconds to sing Before they were told To go home

And then I thought Well maybe it will be the same result for me You know I have no reason to to believe that I would suddenly make it to Hollywood or even get to see Randy Paul or Simon. It takes multiple rounds. So I saw the staff members, they were going to the other people really quick.

And then I thought, oh, no, is it going to be the same for me? And then they let me stay over a minute. And then they somehow, they let me through. They told me to come back the next day. How many people are invited back? It's about 200, maybe 180. I auditioned in front of the producers. And then, you know, they told me to St.

Shebangs. I did. And then I thought, well, at any point, I thought I would be done. That's it. No more. But somehow, they let me through again. Okay. It's when I get to see Randy, Paula, and Simon.

I know that because as soon as I get past the set, the producers, I got to meet Ryan's secrets. Did your friends know you were doing this? Did you sort of do it on a whim? Oh, no. I try to keep it to myself. I didn't want to elect to me to people know about it. I only told one classmate friend because I knew that I had to miss a couple of days of classes.

So I told her to take good notes for me. I'll treat you afterwards. Wow. Okay. So then the audition happens. Then you, what? Maybe just like return to your life, right? How much time is there between the audition and when it airs? About four months difference.

How did you feel afterwards? Was it just like, well, that was fun? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I had no reason to expect anything else. I mean, they told me that, you know, you're not ready for this. You cannot move on to Hollywood. It's okay. I mean, I expected that result. It's nothing surprising. But what was surprising is the reaction after. I mean, the first thing that surprised me is that why they chose to broadcast my audition

because in January, I saw myself in the football commercial. Was your audition included in, like, promotions before your episode? Yes. Yes, it was during the Cotton Bowl commercial in New Year's Day. I still remember. I didn't know what to expect. I have no idea why they would pick my audition to promote a lot, not just for a time. And then I was thinking, like, wait, what was different about my audition?

Why would they want to make my audition stand out? Not many people took notice. Last fast forward to the day, I was watching the auditions by myself. I purposely locked myself in the room inside my dorm. I didn't want people to know about it. I don't know how people react to it. So I was watching the episode from start to finish in the San Francisco episode. And then I noticed that many people who don't make it to Hollywood,

they would get angry and upset. Yeah. How did you feel? about the like the way that they edited and sort of framed the audition um i thought it i thought it was uh it was good for me uh yeah i mean i mean of course i i didn't have the raw classical talent or the musical talent you know if you if you look it from it you know if you compare to people that are trained i know i mean i know that i mean i'm self-aware enough to know that but but you know So I feel like, wow, I can't believe that I'm one of the few people who was positive working out of the audition room.

Even though the audition is like not framed as this is a good audition, you're someone who like has a lot of composure and you're like, okay, well, bye. So you were happy with the appearance generally? Yeah, yeah. And overnight, you are a student, you are by all accounts, a random person. And then all of a sudden, you're William Hung. How quickly do you feel this sort of momentum start? And, like, how did you handle it? It was overwhelming at first.

I got so many interview and performing opportunities. I had to talk to my class-paid friends. Eventually, my parents found out. I also had to talk to my parents. How did they take it? My parents, initially, they didn't take it that too well. They asked, they questioned why I put myself on the spot like that, you know? Interesting.

Was that like not something that they had known you to do in the past? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They didn't expect that. What kind of opportunities were being presented in the first sort of wave of attention? The first ones I did, I remember, were entertainment. Raymond tonight, Brian C. Cress Show, and Ellen DeGeneres. I'm interested to talk about, and I know this has been sort of reflected on in the 20-year articles, all these different ways that you are presented to the public, where you are consistently,

yeah, I'm myself and like I like singing and this is a positive thing. You know, there's all of these reactions where some people act as if you're not in on the joke. Yes, yes. Was that frustrating? How do you handle that? Because it's like, in retrospect, if you read anything you said, it's very clear that, you know,

you're not approaching this. Like, I am the world's most amazing singer. No, I'm not. The way I approach is that I don't feel comfortable with the people trusting my story. And I think American Idol is an amazing platform. So it's not from American Idol. It's the media.

Some people on the media, they decided to church the story, you know. What did the media get wrong about you at the time? I don't agree with me portraying Asian stereotypes. That's the most common one I get. And the reason I don't agree with that is that, yes, I don't have the raw talent. I didn't make it to Hollywood. Right now, after many years, years, you know, I have empathy for those people.

I understand where they came from because, you know, back in the days, we only had very few, we have very few respectable Asian actors or entertainers, you know. Sure, they're like crossed over into America, yeah. Right, all right, maybe Jackie Chan, Michelle, and that's about it. What also interests me because this is a show about the Internet, is how this happens at this weird point where there's a lot of traditional media covering your story. And then there's also like random people on the internet. And I remember that like huge petition to have you return to American Idol. Oh yeah. I still remember that too. Yeah. It's a weird technology

crossroads too. Were you aware of the internet conversations around you? Did you participate in them? What was the situation there? I didn't participate in them because I'm only one person. I could not handle all that. Totally, yeah. And I don't think it would be healthy from mental health side of it to look at the worst and negative comments, you know. I mean, someone even made up a story that I committed suicide due to a hero's overdose. Yeah, yeah.

That article may have been, might be still online today. When people asked me about it at that time, I told them, I never used drugs. I hate drugs. So I'm standing before you very, very. very healthy, very positive, right? How do you maintain and manage your mental health when you're going through something so intense and also not relatable to most people? How do you, how did you manage it?

Well, I try to take the positive criticism, the constructive criticism that I can apply to improve myself, you know, like how, for example, maybe suggestions or how I handle the media, suggestions on how I manage myself, you know, moving forward. And then, but the negative criticism that I cannot apply, I cannot improve myself with. What's the point of listening to it? Just ignore it. Put it aside. Move on. More people need to take that advice. And we'll be right back with more from William Hung. What would you do if one bad decision forced you to choose between a maximum security prison

or the most brutal boot camp designed to be hell on earth? Unfortunately for Mark Lombardo, this was the choice he faced. He said, you are a number, a New York State number, and we own you. Shock incarceration, also known as boot camps, are short-term, highly regimented correctional programs that mimic military basic training. These programs aimed to provide a shock of prison life, emphasizing strict discipline, physical training, hard labor, and rehabilitation programs. Mark had one chance to complete this program and had no idea of the hell awaiting him the next six months.

The first night was so overwhelming, and you don't know who's next to you. And we didn't know what to expect in the morning. Nobody tells you anything. Listen to shock incarceration on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get to. a foot washed up a shoe with some bones in it. They had no idea who it was. Most everything was burned up pretty good from the fire that not a whole lot was salvageable. These are the coldest of cold cases, but everything is about to change. Every case that is a cold case that has DNA right now in a backlog will be identified in our lifetime. A small lab in Texas is cracking the code

on DNA. Using new scientific tools, they're finding clues in evidence so tiny you might just miss it. He never thought he was going to get caught. And I just looked at my computer screen. I was just like, gotcha. On America's Crime Lab, we'll learn about victims and survivors. And you'll meet the team behind the scenes at Othrum, the Houston Lab that takes on the most hopeless cases to finally solve the unsolvable. Listen to America's Crime Lab on the IHeart Rating. radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The OGs of Uncensored Motherhood are back and badder than ever. I'm Erica.

And I'm Mila. And we're the host of the Good Mom's Bad Choices podcast, brought to you by the Black Effect Podcast Network every Wednesday. Historically, men talk too much. And women have quietly listened. And all that stops here. If you like witty women, then this is your tribes. With guests like Corinne Steffens.

I've never seen so many women protect predatory men. And then me too happen. And then everybody else wanted. get pissed off because the white said it was okay. Problem. My oldest daughter, her first day in ninth grade, and I called to ask how I was going. She was like, oh, dad, all they were doing was talking about your

thing in class. I ruined my baby's first day of high school. And slumflower. What turns me on is when a man sends me money. Like, I feel the moisture between my legs when the man sends me money. I'm like, oh my God, it's go time. You actually sent it? Listen to

the Good Mom's Bad Choices podcast every Wednesday on the Black Effect Podcasts network the iHeart radio app apple podcast or wherever you go to find your podcast we all know right genius is evenly distributed opportunity is not it's black business month and black tech green money is tapping in i'm will lucas spotlighting black founders investors and innovators building the future one idea at a time let's talk legacy tech and generational wealth i don't think any person of any gender race ethnicity should alter who they are especially on an intellectual level or a talent level to make someone else feel comfortable just because they are the

majority in this situation and they need employment. So for me, I'm always going to be honest in saying that we need to be unapologetically ourselves. If that makes me a vocal CEO and people consider that rocking the boat, so be it. To hear this and more on the power of black innovation and ownership, listen to Black Tech Green Money from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Adventures should never come with a pause button. Remember the Movie Pass era, where you could watch all the movies you wanted for just $9? It made zero cents and I could not stop thinking about it.

I'm Bridget Todd, host of the tech podcast, there are no girls on the internet. On this new season, I'm talking to the innovators who are left out of the tech headlines. Like the visionary behind a movie pass, Black founder Stacey Spikes, who was pushed out of Movie Pass, the company that he founded. His story is wild and it's currently the subject of a juicy new HBO documentary. We dive into how culture connects us. When you go to France, or you go to England, or you go to Hong Kong, those kids are wearing Jordans, they're wearing Kobe's shirt, they're watching Black Panther.

And the challenges of being a Black founder. Close your eyes and tell me what a tech founder looks like. They're not going to describe someone who looks like me and they're not going to describe someone who looks like you. I created There Are No Girls on the Internet because the future belongs to all of us. So listen to there are no girls on the internet on the IHurt Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to 16th Minute. My name's Jamie Loftus and Twist. A couple years after my iconic debut at Campanelli Stadium in Brockton, Massachusetts, I sang the national anthem again to another sold-out crowd who was

They were to see baseball and not me, and this time my little brother sang with me. And yes, I had the same culturally insensitive hairstyle. You can blame my mom. Our whole thing became that when a Canadian baseball team came to town, I would sing the American national anthem, and Ben would sing the Canadian national anthem. And my brother was really little, so it was very cute. Here's Ben.

You're born on the Canadian, natural anthem. Oh, Canada, my home and native land. Ben, he's slaying there. Anyways, here's the rest of my interview with William Hung. It all seems like everything happens very fast because you are on the show, there's these whole different rounds of discourse about you. And then you're making an album, how did that sort of come together?

One of my record companies at the time caught records, they noticed the opportunity. They saw how I had like insane website traffic for my website. Yeah, yeah, they mentioned the petition one too. Yeah, they noticed those things. And then they took a chance to reach out to me. They will offer like a $25,000 advance for the record contract. Oh, my. And you're like a college student.

Yeah, 20 years ago. Well, I think the money was definitely a factor because I know that if I take on this opportunity, you know, it will be worth way more than that. You know, it's not just the record contract by itself. It's, you know, I'm going to get more performance, more commercials, things like that. So I knew that financial side, yeah, it makes sense for me to take that chance. But I think on the other side, the, I would say the performance, personal brand. The biggest opportunity I have by taking this is to share my version of my

own story. It's like an opportunity to sort of control the narrative about yourself that was Yeah. Yeah. That's the reason I said yes. That's the main reason. How did you want to shift things at that time? I try to focus on the positive when people question like why am I in entertainment industry. That's a common question I get at the time. You know you don't have the role of talent, why you want to still do this. Don't you realize people are laughing at you? And I say, my response is that, you know, I can't please everybody.

I know I have fans that want me to perform. They want to see me. And then I focus on bringing happiness to my fans. I mean, this first album does super, super well. I remember seeing it in stars. So you do a couple albums. Three total is like two studio albums and Christmas up. And that's like throughout the mid-2000s.

Are you making your full-time living off of this at the time? Yeah, I did it full-time for about four years. From these very chaotic four years, do you have any favorite memories or appearances or anything that kind of sticks out to you? It's like, wow, that was really cool. Well, one of the most nerve-wracking performance that I did was for the Rose Bowl. When I was a very last performer, I was on the same level as the, you know, Janet Jackson, Black Ice Piece at the time, Roon 5, was crazy.

Something that I learned more about from your TED Talk that I'm really interested to talk about is the moment where you're like, all right, I'm going to get back to being myself and having kind of a normal life. When did you decide sort of like, I don't really want to perform full time anymore, and how did you navigate back into normal life? It's a transition. I think keeping it real with you. I don't think I can go back to normal life 100%. It just doesn't. That would never happen. But the way I try to transition is that I try to do the normal things, you know, going to school, eating a normal meal, not a fancy restaurant, or, you know, go and join my hobbies, whether it's playing sports or video games, whatever, hanging out with friends, just gradually get back. back into the normal life. Take me through your kind of career as you're coming off this wild four-year journey. So the first thing I did was I decided that I need to go back to school.

I need to finish my degree. And then I changed my major to math. I finished school. I thought I was going to become a teacher. That's probably what you heard in my tech talk. I wanted to become a math teacher. But it was so tough because I feel like math teacher, like I wanted to give. But sometimes it's like, it's like an extra job, you know?

It's like it's not just a job in the classroom, but it's also the job outside the classroom. Did you enjoy being a teacher? I enjoyed it, but I'm not sure if I want that as my long-term career. So that's why, you know, when I saw the chance to apply for the Sheriff's Department for the statistical analyst, so the numbers guy, it's like, okay, why not? That's a good time to try. I tried it. I got in. It was pretty cool, you know.

I feel like I'm part of the bigger mission to help prevent and reduce the crime. That's really, that's a nice mission to be part of. I did that for about two years. And then I got promoted to work for public health for about six years. And then I decided to do something a little crazy. So, you know, maybe it's time for me to get out of my job, start my job, start my my own entertainment business again. I wanted to talk to this before we talk about the entertainment company.

You bring this up in your TED Talk as well. How the audition kind of followed you into the workplace. What was navigating that like when people were like, wait a second, why do I know who you are? I was actually very open about it. I decided that being open was the best way forward. Because once they know the first time, my whole story, they will stop asking questions about it eventually.

So, yeah, I think that sharing everything was the easiest way. And then you want to get back into entertainment. Tell me about that period of time. It was a very, very interesting timing because another thing that people might not know is that I've been playing and studying poker for many years on the side. It's another one of my psychics. So at the time, when I quit my job, The main reason was that I was, there's something called a cameo.

It's like an app where people could request like a short video for birthday, graduation, motivation, motivation, and of course, she banks. And then I got, for some reason within, you know, that year that I chose to quit, you know, the year before that, I got so many requests. Like more than 20 each day. And then the place I'm living at in LA, it's not ideal for doing that because, you know, my house has very thin walls. And then my neighbors would get very upset. They would complain. They would bang the wall. And that's why I feel like, okay, well, you know, between that new business, you know, and then my poker, I feel like I could make it.

I could make it my own. And is that what you're doing now or where are you at now? The first few years, after I decided to quit my job, I still remember it was around 2020 right before the pandemic. It was rough. I moved from L.A. all the way to Florida because I knew a friend there, you know. Because at the time, it was hard to find a house where I could do that, the singing, the cameo, you know, to earn the money.

Because if I moved to another place, I could have the same problem. Not many people could put up with that. But the place I moved to, it was a big house, the room was very set, was pretty far away from other people. So how long did you stay in Florida? Are you still there? Did you move back to California? Yeah. So I stayed in Florida for about two years. And then after I recovered from the COVID, I gradually also started earning some extra money from poker. Everything was good. I earned really good money more than my job, you know. And then eventually another friend reached out to me, you know, she said, like, maybe, you know, maybe it's time for you to consider Las Vegas, you know, because Las Vegas would be an upgrade from Florida, for sure, you know, especially for playing poker. And I got a pretty good deal on the house at the time.

So it's like, okay, let's try. Let's go for it. And then, you moved to Vegas. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So about two years, I moved to Vegas. And then reality started to stay. in. My entertainment business was not as good as before. The poker competitions a lot harder over there. So I wasn't doing so good.

And then did you stay in Vegas or did you go back to California? At one point, I was getting desperate. I knew I shouldn't do this. But I somehow, but I was desperate. Maybe I hope I was, I could get lucky. I got into other forms of gambling. And then I really shot myself in the foot. So, been very open over the year. You know, like having struggles with with gambling and trying to find a healthy way for it to exist within your life. That seems like, I mean, I know that that is such a tricky thing to have to work through, especially if you're living in Vegas. Yeah, yeah.

Mentally, like, at the time, I was thinking about how to, how do I get back to the top? Former glory. But I realized that's not a good way, it's not a healthy way to look at it, you know. I already should be grateful for everything I have. So, you know, why I want to throw everything away? So that's the thought that really helped me change. And then I decide, okay, what can I do now that's going to be better for me? Well, and then I thought, well, you know what?

Let's stop the gambling. Let's put aside. You know, let's use my math skills to do something good. Right time. Right timing. I had another chance to get back to the Sheriff's Department in Los Angeles. in L.A., and that's why I moved back. Yeah.

The at the Sheriff's Department. Yeah, yeah. How are you doing now? How are you feeling these days? You've come truly full circle in these last 20 years. Yes, for sure. I feel very good. I'm happily married now, finally.

Yeah, after the past marriages that didn't quite work out either. So it's a long, like you said, full circle, you know. Yeah. Now, now I still do my entertainment. I still do it on the side. A psychic is all good. And then I also started a new business, you know, helping people with insurance. And the primary motivation for me is that I want to know what I'm paying my money for.

It's America. You know, everybody needs insurance. Where is my money going? Is this what am I paying for? Yeah, looking back on 20 years ago, two different questions. Do you have any regrets about? 2004, and how has, like, how you view that period changed over time? No regrets at all.

Because in life, you want to make the best decision based on the information you know at the time. Not later, not before, at the present at that time. I got more than what I could ask for already. I'm very grateful for the experience. I feel that experience will, you know, it gives me a good. a unique, healthy perspective, you know, how to handle adversity, no matter what happens. You know, no matter what happens, I feel like I can get back up. Looking back on it, it's like the way you were treated by the media at different points,

it just like makes my fist ball up. You're just like, you've managed everything so beautifully. You've always been yourself, and I just, it was such a pleasure to talk to you. If you want to find out what I'm up to, you can find me on Instagram and LinkedIn. William Hung, thank you so much for joining me. This was so much fun. You're welcome. Thank you so much to William Hung for his time and his openness. I'm incredibly grateful and remain a lifelong fan. You can check out what he's up to and all of his social media at the links in the description. What I really admire about William is his gentleness. His essence has remained consistent through the years.

Even as the world judged and built and destroyed all of these different narrative. around him. Here he is in March 2004, just weeks after becoming famous. Are you good at the civil engineering? I'm struggling as well with civil engineering. I'm struggling with pretty much most of the things I do in my life. But no, you know, what you need to understand is that everybody goes through struggles to succeed. You don't. Yes, you're absolutely right. This was a kid, a 21-year-old, thrust into the spotlight and trying to keep things light. But there were forces moving against William from the jump.

His story is singular, and while he doesn't resonate with a lot of the narratives pushed onto him, as we talked about in our interview, anti-Asian racism as well as the general brutality of American reality TV, I do think they're worth exploring with people who did resonate with those narratives. The 2000s was a uniquely fucked time for mask off discrimination and exploitation in the public sphere, and I wanted to talk to people who have either worked in that space or lived through it. And so, in part two of our William Hung episode, we'll be talking to Nancy Wang Yun, an OG reality TV editor and fan of this very show, Steve Flack. That's next week on 16th minute.

And for your moment of fun, the full, the necessary, no sex allowed. Bye. I'm sitting around, modern my biz, something's wrong and I don't know what it is. My girl comes around, she's an Episwrex, she starts playing with me, all she wants is sex. But take it from me, hear what I say, I don't need that, there's a better way, so I promise her love, strings along cause sex is weak and love is strong No sex allowed

I don't want to be part of your crowd No sex allowed And if you don't like it Get out of town Do I do the second verse? Is that okay? 16th Minute is a production of Cool Zone Media and I Heart Radio

It is written, hosted, and produced by me, Jamie Laughness. Our executive producers are Sophie Lichten and Robert Evans. The Amazing Ian Johnson is our supervising producer and our editor. Our theme song is by Sad 13. Voice acting is from Grant Crater. And pet shoutouts to our dog producer Anderson, My Cats Flea, and Casper, and my pet rock bird who will outlive us all. Bye!

If you're looking for another, podcast about trauma, this ain't it. This is for the ones who had to survive and still show up as brilliant, loud, soft, and whole. The Unwanted Sorority is where black women, fims, and gender expansive survivors of sexual violence rewrite the rules on healing, support, and what happens after. And I'm your host and co-president of this organization, Dr. Leitra Tate. Listen to the Unwanted Sorority, new episodes every Thursday on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Every case that is a cold case that has DNA.

Right now in a backlog will be identified in our lifetime. On the new podcast, America's Crime Lab, every case has a story to tell, and the DNA holds the truth. He never thought he was going to get caught, and I just looked at my computer screen. I was just like, ah, gotcha. This technology is already solving so many cases. Listen to America's Crime Lab on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you at your podcasts.

It's Black Business Month and Money and Wealth podcast with John Hope Bryant is tapping in. I'm breaking down how to build wealth, create opportunities, and move from surviving to thriving. It's time to talk about ownership, equity, and everything in between. Black and brown communities have historically been lasting lives. Let me just say this, AI is moving faster than civil rights legislation ever did. Listen to Money and Wealth from the Black Effect Podcast Network on IHeart Radio app. Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. What would you do if one bad decision forced you to choose between a maximum security prison

or the most brutal boot camp designed to be hell on earth? Unfortunately for Mark Lombardo, this was the choice he faced. He said, you are a number, a New York State number, and we own you. Listen to shock incarceration on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Check out Behind the Flow, a podcast documentary series following the launch of San Diego Football Club. San Diego coming to MLS is going to be a game changer because this region has been hungry for a men's professional soccer team.

We need to embrace this community. Listen to San Diego FC, Behind the Flow, on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you. You get your podcast. This is an IHeart podcast.