Sanjaya Malakar Informations

Sanjaya Joseph Malakar (born September 10, 1989) is an American singer, who was a finalist on the sixth season of American Idol. He gained national attention on the series, controversially advancing to 7th place with public votes, despite being poorly received by the show's judges, particularly Simon Cowell.

After Idol, Malakar made many television guest appearances and has been commonly parodied in popular culture. He placed fifth in second season of the reality television show I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!.

Malakar was born in Capitol Hill, in downtown Seattle, the son of Vasudeva Malakar, a Bengali Indian immigrant born in Vrindavan, India and Jillian (Recchi) Blyth, an American of Italian descent on one side and Dutch, English, and Irish ancestry on the other. He later lived in the nearby suburb of Federal Way. His parents filed for divorce when he was three years old and had been separated for a year prior to doing so. When the divorce was filed, the family had almost no money coming in. His mother and the children were living in a Seattle apartment, and her only income was from welfare. His mother remarried, but his stepfather died soon afterwards. Although Malakar spent the majority of his formative years in the Seattle area, he has also lived in both California and Kauai, Hawaii, where he performed with the Hawaii Children's Theater group. While in Seattle, he spent three years with the Total Experience Gospel Choir.

Malakar attended Martha Lake Elementary School in Lynnwood, Washington for elementary school, and the Seattle Waldorf School and Northshore Junior High School for middle school in Bothell, Washington. He attended Shorecrest High School in Shoreline, Washington during freshman year, and Todd Beamer High School in Federal Way, Washington during sophomore year. After his sophomore year, Malakar passed the General Educational Development test, in order to leave high school early and focus on a music career and on his participation in American Idol.

On September 19, 2006, Malakar, a shy teen, entered the open audition for American Idol at the Seattle Center in Seattle, with his sister Shyamali. Simon Cowell commented that Sanjaya had a better voice than his sister. Both were advanced to the Hollywood round by the judges. Malakar cited Stevie Wonder as his idol, and sang one of Wonder's signature songs, "Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours" at his Seattle audition.

For his next performance, in Hollywood, Malakar sang "Some Kind of Wonderful". He was shown tearfully embracing his sister when she was cut, though he progressed to the Top 40. Next, Malakar sang "Ain't No Mountain High Enough". The judges were largely critical of his performance, though Simon Cowell admitted that Malakar is popular with the voters while Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul gave a more positive appraisal of his "You Really Got Me" performance in the Top 11. A 13-year-old girl named Ashley Ferl was highlighted repeatedly during Malakar's performance in the Top 11 episode, crying tears of joy, although Ferl also cried for Melinda Doolittle, Jordin Sparks, and many other contestants.

On March 27, 2007, Malakar sang No Doubt's "Bathwater" wearing a fauxhawk made from multiple ponytails. The style was called the "ponyhawk" by host Ryan Seacrest. While singing, Malakar hesitated with some of the words to the song. Simon Cowell remarked, "Sanjaya, I don't think it matters anymore what we say ... I think you are in your own universe and if people like you, good luck." The following night, host Seacrest walked out on stage wearing a wig with the same hairstyle, parodying Malakar.

On April 3, Malakar sang "Cheek to Cheek", wearing a white suit, donning a slick hairstyle (with a recent cut), and dancing with judge Paula Abdul. Abdul commented, "I get it. I get why people love you. You are charming." On the following April 4 results show, it was revealed that Malakar had finished in the "middle three," among nine contestants.

Malakar's performance of "Bésame Mucho" in the Top 8 on April 10 was his first unanimously well-received performance by the judges in the finals of the competition. During rehearsals Jennifer Lopez remarked, "I like this kid. I love Sanjaya!" after hearing him sing in Spanish, the only one of the remaining eight contestants to do so on the Latin-theme night. Randy Jackson commented, "You're one of the smartest contestants I've ever met. That was actually really good. It was," while Simon Cowell offered the halting, "I'm going to hate myself for this. It wasn't horrible." Malakar continued on, entering the Top 7, following that performance on the April 11 results show.

After performing "Something to Talk About" on the previous night, Malakar was placed in the bottom three and was subsequently eliminated in 7th place on April 18, 2007. Singing his farewell performance, after the line "let's give them something to talk about", he ad libbed "other than hair" in place of "how about love".

American Idol's ratings dropped 9% in the episode following Malakar's elimination, which was Idol Gives Back, a charity episode featuring many celebrity guests. The music news website Moldolva.org reported that this was due to Malakar's departure.

On the May 23 American Idol finale, he performed with the top six males, introduced Smokey Robinson in the medley. Malakar performed "You Really Got Me" with Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry on guitar.

Malakar was the season's most talked about American Idol contestant, based on articles and searches conducted on the Internet. One American Idol fan on MySpace claimed to be on a hunger strike until Malakar was voted off; she later admitted that she was canceling her strike, after his stay was longer than expected. In her YouTube video, an advertisement for a dating site was prominently displayed, causing speculation her hunger strike was really for profit. Other members of the MySpace online community created a page entitled Team Sanjaya in support for him. However, members of the online community have contributed semi-fictional web sites, appearing to portray Malakar in a more satirical but supportive way. Websites parodying Malakar's success had also appeared.

An official fansite for Malakar was created with approval of and contributions by the entertainer and his mother Jillian Blyth, and archives include in-person reports for each 2007 American Idol Concert Tour event.

Simon Cowell told Extra that had Malakar won, he would not have returned as a judge to the show, even though he was contractually obligated to return. The show's executive producer predicted that Malakar would not win. Some commentators have remarked that the judges seemed to have stopped giving thoughtful critiques of Malakar's performances. The judges seemed stunned by his large following of voters. Randy Jackson went as far to remark that "I cannot even say anything on the vocals anymore", in his critique of Malakar after his performance during the top nine. Chris Ayres of The Times speculated that it would have been a turning point leading toward decline and eventual cancellation for American Idol if Malakar had won. Others, however, believe that the franchise benefited from the publicity, which was more popular than previous seasons of Idol. On the April 17 broadcast of American Idol, Cowell further said of the controversy, "I know this has been funny for a while, but based on the fact that we are supposed to be finding the next American Idol [Malakar's performance] was hideous."

The weblog Vote for the Worst had Malakar as its current "pick" for the sixth season top 12 until he was eliminated. On March 19, 2007, Howard Stern campaigned for his radio show listeners to join the weblog in voting for Malakar "to corrupt the No.1 show on television". Some Stern regulars claimed to have voted for Malakar over 300 times—largely in hopes of tormenting American Idol traditionalists on the show. Later, when asked for a reaction, Malakar told Jimmy Kimmel that his aunt had voted 1100 times.

The fan reaction of Ashley Ferl was satirized on the March 24, 2007 broadcast of Saturday Night Live, during the Weekend Update segment. Malakar was portrayed by Andy Samberg, and the crying girl was portrayed by Kristen Wiig. Also feigning tears in the audience were Fred Armisen and Dan Aykroyd. Samberg portrayed Malakar again during the monologue of the April 21, 2007 episode, singing the song "Something To Talk About" as a duet with host Scarlett Johansson. The controversy spawned colloquialisms associated with Malakar's name, such as "Sanjayamania" and "Fanjaya" to denote a Sanjaya fan.

The Federal Way City Council, initially unable to find his address or whereabouts, announced plans to honor Malakar. Sanjaya Malakar was greeted by screaming fans at The Commons at Federal Way, and was praised by the city's Mayor Michael Park and King County Council member Peter von Reichbauer for serving as a great role model, with Park stating "Sanjaya's charismatic personality, contagious smile, positive attitude and enthusiastic pursuit of his dreams are qualities to be admired." Malakar was presented a Certificate of Appreciation from the city and declaration of "South King County Sanjaya Malakar Day". In May 2007, he was also honored at Seattle Center in Seattle, Washington,where he was greeted by fans, signed autographs and answered questions. The council had received 200 e-mails from around the country asking the city to honor Malakar.

Since Malakar placed in the top 10, he qualified to perform as part of the 2007 American Idol Concert Tour, which, over three months, visited over 50 cities in Canada and U.S. He performed Michael Jackson's "The Way You Make Me Feel" during the tour.

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