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The music industry was rocked last Thursday when news broke that an artist made famous by American Idol was involved in a major lip syncing scandal.
For the time the show has been on the air, only a handful of contestants have gone on to continued stardom after their time in front of the judges. That number is even smaller when one considers the 11 winners the show has produced. There are even a few cases where the show’s losers have become the winners in the long run.
Of the vocalists who went on to record an album and pursue a successful career as a singer, there are now allegations that one of them was lip syncing all along.
That artist is William Hung.
Hung burst onto the scene in 2004 when his American Idol audition aired on Fox. It was at that point that the public fell in love with Hung and he found himself doing the talk show circuit, radio interviews, and eventually recording covers of some of his most favorite songs.
Little did his adoring fans know at the time that Hung was not the owner of the pipes behind the tone deaf assault on hits such as “She Bangs” and “I Believe I Can Fly”.
The music industry hasn’t been rocked this hard since the Milli Vanilli incident of the early 90’s or even the advent of peer to peer file sharing just a few years later.
William Hung himself held a press conference to discuss the matter on Friday. Hung’s defense was that his first audition was nothing like the audition which eventually aired. In a clearly spoken voice with no hint of his trademark accent, Hung explained that his first audition was a selection from the musical Les Miserables called “Empty Chairs At Empty Tables”. “The audition was pitch perfect.” explained Hung. “There wasn’t a dry eye in the house when I was done.’
It was at that point, Hung explained, that a plan was hatched by the show’s producers to create a sensation bigger than American Idol itself. “They showed me a video of “She Bangs” just once, and told me to go sing it in front of the judges. I had never heard the song before. They told me I didn’t have the charisma to win the regular competition, but that I had the makings for a different dynamic the producers wanted to pursue. They promised they would get me signed to a contract and make me famous before the season was over. I couldn’t help but to jump at the opportunity.”
Deceased vocalists Freddy Mercury, Luciano Pavarotti, and Celine Deion returned from the grave for a brief period of time to stand behind Hung in a display of solidarity and support for the idol with a questionable future ahead of him.
In the meantime, rumors still continue to swirl and fester about the identity of the voice behind the voice. Hung was asked repeatedly about who it was, however he remained silent on the matter.
We may never know.
