| The Candice Foo Special Disappearance award |
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Winner: Meryl Joan Lee
Just like season one’s Candice Foo who mysteriously bowed out of the competition, 17-year-old Meryl Joan Lee from the top 28 voluntarily withdrew at the wildcard stage. The Raffles Junior College student cited studies as the reason. |
Runner-up: One of the final 80 contestants, Amanda Tan, nearly withdrew from the theatre auditions due to nerves. Everyone and anyone who wanted to join the competition but decided not to at the last minute. |
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| Best Makeup |
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Winner: Paul Twohil
The emo rocker claimed the subculture’s black eyeliner as his own this season. But the reason why we don’t often see him without eyeliner may be because, er, it doesn’t quite come off. Jay Lim has told us, “Before he goes to bed, there’d still be traces of it. And then next day, he’d just apply another layer over it!” |
Runner-up: Tengku Adil Bahda from the top 28 used eyeliner to get into character for what he termed a ‘dark song’: Seal’s Kiss from a Rose. But Dick Lee found it unfathomably silly. |
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| Best Spat |
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Winner: Hug-a-snub-snub starring Meryl Joan Lee, Geraldine Chua & Jay Lim
When the seven contenders were revealed for the Wildcard show, Geraldine and Jay gave Meryl the bum’s rush as they dished out hugs and high-fives to everyone else. A lost Meryl looked as if she could do with some all-around cuddliness. Find out more about the incident here. |
Runner-up: Fight for your Room starring Chanelle Pelaez, Charyle Wong & Geraldine Chua. The latter wanted to use the room and her laptop, the others wanted a place to rehearse. A peeved Geraldine later griped these famous words about the incident: “Shut up your mouth.” |
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| Best Controversy |
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| Winner: Technical Glitch starring Mathilda D’ Silva & Nurul Maideen. On June 22, the way was paved for Mathilda to go on to the Top 12… or so viewers thought. But days later, the results were deemed inaccurate due to a technical glitch, resulting in a public outcry. Nurul took the confirmed spot while Mathilda settled for a fighting chance in the Wildcard show. |
Runner-up: Singapore Idol is a Singing Competition starring Joakim Gomez. Bravo to dancing monkey’s courage for staying… but ‘nuff said. |
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| Best Transformation |
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Winner: Charmaine Pelaez
From tomboy goalie with messy eyebrows and no makeup to glam belly button-flasher, we wondered if Singapore Idol 2 was really this top 28 semi-finalist’s Extreme Makeover. |
Runner-up: Rahimah Rahim. At first, she vaguely appeared like a scary troll who had ventured out of her cave. But who would have known that she was really this (and arguably the most) adorable among the finalists? |
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| Best Celeb Clone |
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Winner: Jonathan Leong
Too many people have compared him to brooding J-thespian Takeshi Kaneshiro, thanks to his earnest mug and distinctive shoulder-length locks. He’s even been forbidden by the show producers to snip off his locks. |
Runners-up: Hady Mirza & Joakim Gomez. Both resemble Caldecott Hill’s dashing male leads; the former looks like Li Nanxing at some angles, while the latter calls to mine a chirpier version of a young Chew Chor Meng. |
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| Best Name-Calling |
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Winner: Jasmine Tye
In the early stage of the competition, Dick Lee called Jasmine a ‘potato sack’, possibly devastating her for life. But when we pressed her to label Dick in return after the piano show, she gave a helpless look before saying, “I just call him Dick.” Intentionally cheeky or not, the remark bought a chuckle to many journalists on the spot. |
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| Most Improved |
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Winner: Emilee Kang
She started out on her first piano show singing with added vibrato echoes for effect. Dick called it ‘getai’, Florence called it ‘Mandarin Chinese’, Belle and Sebastian called one of their songs ‘Get me away from here, I’m Dying’, and the song title perfectly summed up how many Singaporeans felt. Luckily for us, she managed to completely overturn her distracting singing style. Unluckily for Emilee, she only lasted three Spectaculars. |
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| Best Speaker |
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Winner: Mathilda D’ Silva
She’s just 23, but this student of life has so many interests and is so enthusiastic about so many things, it really shows in the way she expresses herself. Plus, her straight-talking style is refreshing. Prime example: volunteering to call herself ‘fat’ in an interview with us. A cool, eloquent chick.
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Runners-up: Rahimah Rahim & Paul Twohill. For the uncensored speech bubbles and the off-the-cuff manner they air their thoughts aloud. There must really be something honest about rock.
Special Mention: Jay Lim. If you’re thinking ‘sheer volume’, Jay’s the guy. He may look like the quiet sort, but man, this guy’s a real talker. Get him started on a topic, and you’ll find that the words ‘stop’ and ‘talking’ are an impossible permutation in his vocabulary. |
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| Most Unfortunate Song Choice |
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| Winner: High & Dry by Norman Then and Leave (Get out) by Gayle Nerva. With Radiohead’s High & Dry, Norman sang his fate out aloud. Similarly, Gayle’s Leave (Get out) rudely directed her to the exit. Unfortunate, we know, but true. |
Runner-up: I Don’t Want To Know by Joakim Gomez. We know you don’t want to know, but still… |
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