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"Idol" Fans Hung Up on Hung
Fri Feb 20, 4:45 PM ET Add Television - E! Online to My Yahoo!


By Joal Ryan

William Hung is forever. For however long that lasts these days.

"I think his 15 [minutes] can be 24," cable TV executive Marc Juris said.


Betting that Hung, this season's biggest American Idol loser, has a few more media cycles in him, Juris' Fuse network joined with Koch Entertainment this week to offer the 20-year-old college student a $25,000 recording-slash-music video contract.


If all goes according to plan, Hung will sign by next week; the album--more like a five- or six-song mini-album--will be on sale three weeks after that.


Said Juris: "The kid is a true phenomenon."


The Fuse president's hype is also the truth. In the past month, Hung has been parodied by Jimmy Fallon on Saturday Night Live, invited to croon on Ellen DeGeneres' daytime talk show and anointed a halftime performer at his hometown University of California, Berkeley campus.


An online fan club sports nearly 600 members. An online petition calling on American Idol producers to return him to the competition boasts more than 85,000 virtual signatures. A March 1 Idol special, "Uncut, Uncensored and Untalented," promotes itself in the very image of the dancing, singing Hung (although Fox won't yet say what his involvement in the show may or may not be).


"Obviously, all you need to do [to get famous] is a really bad version of 'She Bangs,'" said Melissa De La Cruz, coauthor of the 2003 self-explanatory tome How to Become Famous in Two Weeks or Less.


Hung, of course, didn't need two weeks to become a media star. He barely needed two minutes.


As featured on the Jan. 27 Idol, the Hong Kong-born Hung "performed," if you'll pardon the expression, Ricky Martin's "She Bangs" during the show's open-call audition round in San Francisco.


"You can't sing. You can't dance. So what do you want me to say?" judge Simon Cowell asked--once he'd stopped rolling his eyes.


To Hung's ever-growing legion of supporters, Cowell's assessment was beside the point.


He was "so sweet and humble about the whole thing that he just touched a nerve with people who had no professional training, but just did their best and had no regrets," says Juris. (The statement consciously echoes Hung's now-immortal Idol words: "I already gave my best, and I have no regrets at all.")


Perky Idol judge Paula Abdul (news) liked Hung's attitude. So did Rebecca Daley and Andrea Michaelian, who identify themselves as the 15-year-old Webmasters of the William Hung Fan Club (williamhung.reallyrules.com/).


"You don't have to have incredible vocal skills to be an entertainer, you just have to make people smile, laugh, cry...and that's just what he did," Daley and Michaelian say in an email interview. (They said they were too busy with homework to talk on the phone.)


Hung, likely busy with homework himself (he's a civil engineering major at Berkeley), could not be reached for comment for this article.


In an email exchange last week, a Henry Hung, believed to be the fledgling famous person's father, but billing himself as "William's Assistant," asked in response to an interview request, "How much [will you] pay to William?" (A reply noted nothing. Communication with the Hungs ceased shortly thereafter.)


The way De La Cruz sees it, if Hung wants to keep his fame clock ticking, he must maintain the unspoiled geeky charm he projected during his Idol audition.

"It's like anti-fame fame," De La Cruz said. "Part of his celebrity is he's not a celebrity."

According to Juris, Hung is in no danger of losing his hook.

Juris saw the undergrad Wednesday night at U.C. Berkeley when he helped present him with the record deal offer following Hung's halftime show (complete with backup dancers) at the men's volleyball game. When asked if Hung still had the same innocence he showed on Idol, Juris said, "Oh, my God--does he ever."

"I gotta tell you it was fantastic [seeing him perform live]. The audience went insane. It was really quite electrifying," Juris said. "I can't tell you how many people I speak to who love that guy."

If nothing else, De La Cruz is impressed Hung has outlasted--and outdone--Janet Jackson (news)'s Super Bowl-stopping wardrobe malfunction, which aired five days after Hung's Idol debut.

Hung's performance, "was much better than Janet Jackson's bare breast," De La Cruz said. "It was funny, spontaneous."

And, for now, idol-making.