out between the metallic slats of the blinds and saw a group of teenage fans holding a vigil for him. At night they lit candles and huddled together to console one another. In daylight he could see that some of them had been crying. He wished they would go away, and after two days he began to resent them. Their presence weighed on him and he couldn’t sleep. He longed to be free of his apartment, which he hated even at the best of times. He had gotten used to having the blinds down all the time—from the moment he moved in, he had never seen the apartment in daylight, not even for one minute. It was always night in his home.
What bothered him was the lack of activity. He wasn’t used to havingtime on his hands. Now that he was rested and feeling better again, he could not stand the hours spent watching DVDs or surfing the Internet. He tried strumming tunes on his guitar or tinkling on the piano, but the apartment was too dark and oppressive, and he could feel no enthusiasm for music. He began to spend too much time on the Internet, on websites he shouldn’t have been looking at. In fact, it was during this period of imprisonment that he discovered sexually explicit sites. At first he hated himself for trawling endlessly through them, but he was surprised at how his initial feelings of wariness and guilt soon gave way to an unthinking numbness, and he would spend hours sitting in the semidarkness, staring at images that were at first shocking but soon became dull. He would fall asleep at odd hours because he could not stop sifting through the pages for new images, even though he felt nothing when he looked at photos of graphic sexual acts. He went to bed feeling empty and full of anger at his fans outside, for they were the ones who had forced him into this position.
Finally his management company called a press conference at which Gary appeared happy and smiling, saying that he had taken time off to return to Malaysia to spend time with friends and family following a “sad occurrence,” which he would rather not discuss in public. Relieved to learn that he was alive and in good health, his fans did not press him any further, assuming that his temporary disappearance was somehow linked to the fact that he was an orphan, raised by distant relatives with whom he had enjoyed no closeness. His troubled youth following the death of his mother was well documented—it was something that made him appear human and vulnerable to his fans. As his manager once told him, his childhood tragedies were a great selling point. But though he was grateful for his fans’ loyalty and adoration, when he looked at the mass of jubilant teenage faces at his next concert, he found their joy so empty and unquestioning that it unnerved him, and he could not get rid of the feeling that had entered his soul during the ten days of confinement in his night-dark apartment. It was unmistakable. He had started to hate them.
That three-week period of internment and difficult public relations upset his tightly packed schedule and cost him in many ways. Not only was the canceled concert an expensive write-off; the negative publicity surrounding his sudden and mysterious disappearance caused several projects to be suspended, and one or two sponsors even doubted whether they should continue to support him. His calendar became compressed tothe point where he could not fulfill his obligations, and his scheduled participation in the Beijing Olympics song and music video was canceled, depriving him of a chance to be seen widely by the biggest audience of them all.
Now he had to work twice as hard to penetrate the Mainland market, his management team said. Everything they did over the coming year would be geared toward establishing him in China—every song he recorded, every TV show he appeared on, every commercial he shot, every hour he slept, every meal he ate. He had everything it took to be a superstar in China, but it would be hard work. He had to be
What bothered him was the lack of activity. He wasn’t used to havingtime on his hands. Now that he was rested and feeling better again, he could not stand the hours spent watching DVDs or surfing the Internet. He tried strumming tunes on his guitar or tinkling on the piano, but the apartment was too dark and oppressive, and he could feel no enthusiasm for music. He began to spend too much time on the Internet, on websites he shouldn’t have been looking at. In fact, it was during this period of imprisonment that he discovered sexually explicit sites. At first he hated himself for trawling endlessly through them, but he was surprised at how his initial feelings of wariness and guilt soon gave way to an unthinking numbness, and he would spend hours sitting in the semidarkness, staring at images that were at first shocking but soon became dull. He would fall asleep at odd hours because he could not stop sifting through the pages for new images, even though he felt nothing when he looked at photos of graphic sexual acts. He went to bed feeling empty and full of anger at his fans outside, for they were the ones who had forced him into this position.
Finally his management company called a press conference at which Gary appeared happy and smiling, saying that he had taken time off to return to Malaysia to spend time with friends and family following a “sad occurrence,” which he would rather not discuss in public. Relieved to learn that he was alive and in good health, his fans did not press him any further, assuming that his temporary disappearance was somehow linked to the fact that he was an orphan, raised by distant relatives with whom he had enjoyed no closeness. His troubled youth following the death of his mother was well documented—it was something that made him appear human and vulnerable to his fans. As his manager once told him, his childhood tragedies were a great selling point. But though he was grateful for his fans’ loyalty and adoration, when he looked at the mass of jubilant teenage faces at his next concert, he found their joy so empty and unquestioning that it unnerved him, and he could not get rid of the feeling that had entered his soul during the ten days of confinement in his night-dark apartment. It was unmistakable. He had started to hate them.
That three-week period of internment and difficult public relations upset his tightly packed schedule and cost him in many ways. Not only was the canceled concert an expensive write-off; the negative publicity surrounding his sudden and mysterious disappearance caused several projects to be suspended, and one or two sponsors even doubted whether they should continue to support him. His calendar became compressed tothe point where he could not fulfill his obligations, and his scheduled participation in the Beijing Olympics song and music video was canceled, depriving him of a chance to be seen widely by the biggest audience of them all.
Now he had to work twice as hard to penetrate the Mainland market, his management team said. Everything they did over the coming year would be geared toward establishing him in China—every song he recorded, every TV show he appeared on, every commercial he shot, every hour he slept, every meal he ate. He had everything it took to be a superstar in China, but it would be hard work. He had to be
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