Hong Kong — Recently, footage of Alan Tam’s godson, Hong Kong singer Kelvin Kwan, performing at a food court in Hainan, China has renewed interest in the disgraced star. The viral footage shows Kwan, 38, wearing a T-shirt and shorts while walking around a food court singing Beyond’s classic hit, Boundless Oceans, Vast Skies. The audience appeared to be impressed by his cover and applauded riotously after his show.
Netizens are now lamenting how the once-rising star has become “nothing but a street performer”, attributing his fall from grace to “a mistake he made that caused his promising career to disappear overnight”.
Kwan’s mistake was his 2009 drug scandal. Back in March 2009, Kwan and his then-girlfriend singer Jill Vidal — both of whom were ironically the faces of Hong Kong’s “Say No To Drugs” campaign at that time — were apprehended in Tokyo for possession of marijuana. The then-26-year-old went back to Hong Kong the same month where he held a press conference to apologise for his mistakes. Unfortunately, the press conference was badly received by members of the public, and Kwan was said to be insincere and evasive, reported 8days.sg.
Since then, his reputation has not recovered from the scandal. Twelve years later, Kwan is still active in showbiz but he is now more of an actor and he was last seen in the TVB drama, AI Romantic. Nevertheless, his performance at the food court has led people to be interested in him again and some netizens say that Kwan deserves a second chance at stardom.
“I think it’s impressive how he hasn’t given up on his passion for singing. He could have felt that such a job was beneath him, but he still did it anyway. What matters is that he still has a good voice. Perhaps someone will give him a second chance,” wrote one netizen.
Kwan is the son of renowned Hong Kong record producer William Kwan and the godson of Cantopop icon Alan Tam, who took him under his wing when Kwan first became a singer in 2005. Kwan’s relationship with Tam opened a lot of doors for him and raised his profile significantly when he was a newbie. Their duet, Big Crybaby, was, in fact, one of 2006’s biggest hits. /TISG