Despite having only a half-decent voice, 17-year-old Paul Twohill knew one thing was for certain when he stepped onto the Singapore Idol stage all those years ago: fans would go berserk and bellow his name.
As a contestant on the second season of the reality show and singing competition, Mr Twohill’s punk rock aura and his trademark Justin Bieber-esque fringe – which covered half his face – made him stand out from the rest of the participants.
His prominent braces and dorky quips only served to enhance his likeability. Somehow, nothing he did then could diminish his popularity.
Perhaps that was why he always seemed larger than life to me, who was 10 years old at the time and watched every episode on television with rapt attention.
Fast forward 16 years to 2022 and I found myself, then a part-time English tutor in a tuition centre where I was teaching classes, shaking hands with “Teacher Paul”.
I recalled squinting my eyes briefly to take a closer look at “Teacher Paul” who had a deep voice, the vibe of a well-adjusted man and clean-cut trim on his head. Gone were those signature braces, too.
I approached him later that day after his students had waved him goodbye because I just had to know: “Are you … ?”
“Yes I am,” he said with a chuckle. “I get that a lot.”
Mr Twohill’s new stage was the front of a classroom and his audience was no longer made up of screaming admirers but mischievous children under 12 who are generally harder to please.
For the last seven years, he has been an English teacher in an enrichment centre. Now 36 years old, he moved to Australia in February this year where he is pursuing an 18-month master’s degree in applied learning and teaching.
We met up at his Singapore home in April for a proper sit-down interview during a university term break, and I found it quite fitting that his four-room flat in Ang Mo Kio was stylish but somewhat jumbled, because conversations with Mr Twohill can often feel that way.
Over several video calls before meeting in person, our conversations covered everything from education to politics. His light-hearted stories were peppered with some wry humour, interspersed frequently with bursts of passionate debate.
However, that day at his home where he lives alone, we were determined to stick to the script.
SHOCK OF WAKING UP TO OBSESSED FANS
When I asked him to describe what it was like being a teenage pop idol, Mr Twohill said it was an “incredible experience”.
“You had thousands of fans screaming, running up to the Singapore Idol van after filming, people writing your name on vending machines,” he said beaming.
He still keeps boxes full of memorabilia and magazine clippings featuring him from 2006 but the main contents are the troves of handwritten letters from fans. He reckoned there were hundreds of them.
At the peak of his popularity, just walking from one end of Orchard Road to the other would take him two to three hours because he had to stop to sign autographs and take pictures with fans.
There were also some dicey situations. For every hundred fan letters he received, he would get a handful of hostile text messages and even death threats.
Once, a man even lunged to attack him in public.
“I’ve had phone calls where I apparently made someone pregnant, but I’ve never met them in my life. There was once I was out in the wee hours of the morning and a guy wanted to beat me up.
“I’ve also been told by a producer during a road show that a guy ran over and literally tried to stab me and another contestant. I didn’t even know, I was busy waving around,” he said.
He admitted that there was a lot of social anxiety that came with the attention and that led him to want to stay home “a lot of times”.
He quickly pointed out, though, that even being at home was not a surefire way to shield himself from the public eye.
“I used to live on the second floor and fans used to hang around downstairs,” he said.
“This particular day, I woke up from a nap and there were people in my room! It was a precarious situation … I was only in my boxers.”
Some secondary school girls had lied to his aunt that they were his friends and she opened the door to let them into the apartment.
“Obviously, I covered myself up and politely asked them to exit the room so I could get dressed … I entertained them for a little bit, then asked them to leave because I had schoolwork to do.”
