Idol Knock Off Makes the Rounds

The seventh American Idol 'ex-hopeful' is not going anywhere, anytime soon. Sanjaya Malakar the 17 year singer that created so much controversy for American Idol is still hanging around. In fact he is making the rounds on all of the TV talk shows, appearing morning, noon and night. It is miraculous that young Sanjaya has time to sleep with his busy schedule and he is not finished yet. Tonight on the "David Letterman's Show" on C.B.S. Sanjaya will do Letterman's famous "Top Ten." Sanjaya has appeared on "Jay Leno", "The Ellen DeGeneres Show", "Live With Regis and Kelly in the Morning"," Good Morning America" and "The Today Show". The young singer also appeared on the celebrity talk show, "Access Hollywood." Later this month he will appear on the kid's station Nickelodeon in an afternoon 'block" appearance.

Sanjaya recently was invited to the 'White House Correspondents Association Dinner' as a guest of People Magazine.The shy young man still has problems with his current celebrity status. He claims that if he could he would spend all of his time just hugging his fans, but the Paparazzi makes doing much of anything quite difficult.

Malakar was voted off of Fox TV's hit show, "American Idol" on the 18th of April. He had been the 7th contestant to remain. Sanjaya has been at the center of much controversy with fans and Sanjaya haters around the globe. Shock-jock, Howard Stern of 'Sirius Radio' claimed that he and his followers were manipulating the voting each week on Idol allowing the questionably talented Malakar to remain with the top ten remaining contestants. There was even a web site who was urging people to keep Sanjaya on TV by clicking on www.votefortheworst.com .For some weeks it seemed to have worked, while fans of the show were perplexed as to how the 17 yr. old kept coming back while so many much more talented singers were banished. 'American Idol's", Simon Cowell had made the statement that if Sanjaya won he (Cowell) wouldn't return next season as a judge. For a time it seemed as though the young man just might win. If he had, it would have been a major test to the credibility of "American Idol and all it represents.

Week after week adoring fans and much of the country waited to see how Sanjaya would appear. Malakar was known for his chameleon type appearance appearing one week with a mock-Mohawk hair style and the next with his hair slicked back into an almost grunge look, complete with stubbly beard. One young fan became almost a star herself when she was shown crying her eyes out on American Idol adoringly, while Malakar sang. The scene was shown over and over again across the country. Malakar was known for showing good humor repeatedly despite the biting comments made by judge Simon Cowell as he critiqued the singer. The last week he appeared on the show, Sanjaya who sang, "Let's Give Them Something To Talk About" modified the song by adding the lyrics, "Let's Give Them Something To Talk About -instead of hair'." Malakar was shown wiping tears from his cheeks in his last few moments on "Idol."

Sanjaya was born on September 10, 1989 in Federal Way, Washington. He was born to an Italian-American mother and a Bengali-Indian father. He dropped out of Todd Beamer High School and received his GED, while giving himself time to be on 'American Idol' and to pursue his musical career. His older sister Shyamali, had also competed to appear on 'American Idol' but was voted off shortly after try-outs. Sanjaya claims that they will soon begin singing together.

Malakar will appear in "The American Idol Top Ten National Tour" after the season ends. He expresses the desire to become not just a singer or musician, but an actor and a model. " Sanjaya may not have the best singing voice around but he does have heart and we will surely see more of him in the future.