Showing posts with label Glenn Ong. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Glenn Ong. Show all posts

Monday, 19 December 2016

There's real news, there's fake news & then there's satirical fake news

I’m sorry.

I did not start it, but I may have contributed to it.

Earlier this month, you might have read this headline on your Facebook timeline: “President Tan invites Thailand’s new king to visit Singapore to eat KFC.”



As much as I like KFC (especially the Red Hot Chicken coated in paprika batter), there is some incongruity in the notion that our head of state would invite Thai royalty to eat fast food that is readily available in the king’s home country.

You might have at first dismissed this as fake news from a local satirical site like New Nation, whose tagline is “50% real news”.

But then it’s not from the New Nation — it’s from The Straits Times.

So your next thought was that someone at The Straits Times was going to get fired.

But as it turned out, anyone could’ve copied the link to The Straits Times article, pasted it on Facebook and changed the headline.



The paper finally addressed this issue last Monday:
“The users could have verified the veracity of the headline by simply clicking the Facebook link through to the article.

“Not only was the headline to the linked article different, the story made no mention of fried chicken or any invitation to consume it.”


But KFC doesn’t sell only fried chicken. You could have the Fish Ole Burger too, you know?

Alas, the article also doesn’t mention the Fish Ole Burger or any invitation to consume it, so the KFC headline is obviously fake.

Fake news has become such a problem that last week, Facebook announced plans to fight fake news because every day is not April Fool’s Day.



In a way, I blame The Onion.

Started in the late 1980s in the same US town where I went to college — Madison, Wisconsin — the Peabody award-winning satirical newspaper became well-known for its humorous fake news stories like “Kim Jong-Un Named The Onion’s Sexiest Man Alive For 2012”, which the Chinese Communist Party took seriously.



The Onion begot New Nation, which begot whoever thought it was funny to embellish The Straits Times headline.

I once laughed at former Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office Lim Hwee Hua for sharing on Facebook an Onion article as fact.

But when a man shot up a US pizza restaurant two weeks ago after believing a fake news story, it’s not so amusing any more.

At least it wasn’t a KFC restaurant.



While it may be unfair to lump The Onion and its satirical ilk with the conspiracy theorists who claimed the pizzeria harboured a child abuse ring, it’s tricky enough to tell real news from fake news without having to make the distinction between fake news and fake news intended as satire as well.

And here is where I have to take some responsibility too.

In July, when radio DJs Glenn Ong and Jean Danker announced that they had finally set a wedding date five years after announcing their engagement, I wrote a column pleading — I mean, asking to be invited to the wedding.

You know, since I missed his first two.

Ong was previously married to fellow DJs Kate Reyes and Jamie Yeo. Not at the same time, of course.

That article might have given the impression that I wanted very badly to be invited to Ong’s third wedding, which was on Friday.



For that, I apologise.

It was fake news. It was satire.

For the record, I don’t really care whether I was invited to the wedding.

And I’m not just saying that because I’m deeply hurt that I didn’t get a invitation.

I mean, everybody was there! Hossan Leong, Beatrice Chia, the guy who used to date Joanne Peh before she married Qi Yuwu — everybody!

A photo posted by Hossan Leong (@hossanleong) on

A photo posted by lobinhoot (@lobinhoot) on

A video posted by Glenn Ong (@glennn) on

Except me.

But like I said, just because I devoted an entire column to listing all the reasons I should be invited, it didn’t mean I actually wanted to be invited.

How hard-up do you think I am?

I had better things to do on Friday night.

I had a very delicious KFC Red Hot Chicken meal.

And that’s the truth.

- Published in The New Paper, 19 December 2016





EARLIER: Please invite me to your wedding, Glenn Ong (I missed your first two)

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Sunday, 24 July 2016

Please invite me to your wedding, Glenn Ong (I missed your first two)

Dear Glenn Ong,

Congratulations! I just read that you’re finally marrying fellow radio DJ Jean Danker in December.



It’s about time, right? I mean, you have been engaged since 2011 and dating since 2009.

That was like three Ah Boys To Men movies ago. We’ve had four Education Ministers since then.

We’ve had two general elections, two by-elections and one presidential election.

And three MPs have quit because of alleged extra-marital affairs.



Not exactly great advertisement for the institution of marriage.

But then neither are you.

I’m kidding! Who is anyone to judge just because you have been divorced twice and don’t want to make it three in a row?

Still, it was a bit of a shock when you and Jean called off your wedding in 2012.

Back then, she told The New Paper that she had cold feet after a fitting for a bridal magazine photo shoot.

“The gowns were beautiful,” she said. “Then I was like oh-oh, we were jumping the gun. I panicked a bit. I had sweaty palms. The vision that was running through my head was that of the wedding, and it was just too overwhelming.”

Last week, Jean explained to Today newspaper that her mother died soon after you proposed.

She said: “It was hard to plan something happy because you’re always grieving.”

But we didn’t know that back then.

In 2012, you told TNP: “People kept asking us when the wedding date was going to be and there was just so much pressure to deal with.”

You said:
“Many times, I feel like I shouldn't have proposed. It was a way of saying to Jean: ‘Look baby, I love you, you're the only one for me and I'm showing you my commitment.’

“I’m regretting it now. I proposed too soon. I wish I could press the reset button and do it all over again.”
Wow. What a bombshell that was.

After that revelation, my wife wanted to bet with me that you and Jean would break up before any wedding.

My wife is such a cynic. Please forgive her. You know how wives are. You’ve had two of them. And another one akan datang.

Way to prove my wife wrong four years later. Now I wish I had taken that bet.

But you know what you can do to help me really rub it in her face?

Invite me to your wedding!

That will definitely show her.

I didn’t get to go to your previous two weddings. I don’t want to miss another one.

Yes, I know that Jean has told Today that the dinner would be a “relatively small affair” with fewer than 30 tables.

Yes, I know that you and I barely know each other.

Yes, I know that we’ve had maybe just one face-to-face conversation back in the 90s.

But we did make eye contact four months ago at the Men’s Health Urbanathlon.



And in February last year, we had a Twitter fight over whether VR Man was funny which devolved into me correcting you on some Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney lyrics that you misattributed to Lionel Richie.




Hey, it’s easy to confuse Say Say Say with Say You Say Me. After all, you’re just a DJ who makes a living playing music.

Sure, our mini feud was no Taylor Swift versus Kanye West and Kim Kardashian, but we made up and I feel like we have bonded on an existential level since then.

You even tweeted:
“All is cool again between @sm0ng and me. Everyone please continue to buy @thenewpaper and read Act Blur! OK?”
So what if I’ve made fun of your proclivity for marrying fellow DJs n this column you were urging your Twitter followers to read? I did it only four times, right?

Just as people have forgiven you for that time you said, “If you have to put these mad dogs to sleep, then you should,” regarding the mentally ill (for which MediaCorp was fined $4,500 in 2012), I believe you are big-hearted enough to let bygones be bygones.

If nothing else, consider me a good luck charm.

You know why your previous two marriages to Kate Reyes and Jamie Yeo didn’t work out? Because I wasn’t invited to the wedding.

I was invited to Gurmit Singh’s wedding in 1995, and he and his wife Melissa are still happily married after more than two decades.



I was also a guest at Mark Richmond and Vernetta Lopez’s wedding dinner, and see how happily married they are now.

To other people.



I shall patiently await your invitation in the mail.

Yours existentially,
S M Ong

- Publlished in The New Paper, 24 July 2016

EARLIER

Kate, Jamie, Jean – will Glenn Ong run out of colleagues to marry?

Another 'online spat': Glenn Ong versus... me?

UPDATE

I didn't really want to be invited to Glenn Ong's wedding

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Wednesday, 25 February 2015

Another 'online spat': Glenn Ong versus... me?

I guess this has been a long time coming.

In respose to my column on Sunday about his 'online spat' with Nicholas Lee, Glenn Ong tweeted this today:



He also went on Instagram:



And tweeted:





Do I finally get to be in an 'online spat' with a local celebrity?

As Dolly from Under One Roof used to say, so exciting!

So I tweeted back to Glenn:



He replied:





I corrected him:



Understandable mistake. Glenn probably confused Say Say Say with Richie's Say You Say Me.





Then a sudden change of heart:





And just like that, Glenn's "online spat" with me was over.

Not exactly the thriller one had hoped.



EARLIER: Still a jerk? Glenn Ong versus Nicholas Lee (and VR Man)

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Sunday, 22 February 2015

Still a jerk? Glenn Ong versus Nicholas Lee (and VR Man)



Glenn Ong again?

Yes, I’m aware that I wrote about the former radio DJ just last month.

Can I help it if last week, his second ex-wife Jamie Yeo revealed in a magazine interview that their 2009 break-up was her fault and that she was “really sorry”?

That is a game-changing revelation about Ong, who has provided this column with so much material since he announced his separation from Yeo on his radio show six years ago on Valentine's Day. How romantic.

Then, less than two weeks later, he announced he was dating another DJ, Jean Danker.

There was speculation that Ong was already “dating” Danker during his marriage to Yeo, leading to the split.

Since Ong already had one failed marriage with another DJ, the late Kate Reyes, where Yeo herself was alleged to be the third party, it was easy to jump to the conclusion that he was the bad guy.

Or “scum-worthy”, as radio DJ Joe Augustin put it in 2001 after Ong’s split with Reyes.



Augustin and Ong must have since kissed and made up as Augustin was Ong's last on-air partner before Ong quit MediaCorp last month to become a director at some consulting firm called Cirvis.

That's 50 Shades Of Glenn for ya.

But now Yeo has set the record straight — not about whether she was responsible for breaking up Ong’s first marriage, but about being responsible for breaking up his second marriage and her first.

In response to Yeo's bombshell, Ong, 45, told The New Paper last week:
“Maybe this will answer the questions of a lot of people who blamed me for the split. I bore the brunt of it for years, with netizens calling me a jerk and saying I had cheated on her and was the cause of it all.”
On behalf of all those netizens, I concede that they might have been wrong to say Ong cheated on Yeo - but the jury is still out on whether he is a jerk.

We need a character witness.

I know! Let's get Nicholas Lee.

The actor first came to fame in the 90s as a cast member of Singapore’s first sitcom, Under One Roof.



But today, he is probably better known for his recent online spat with Ong over another local show on Channel 5, a futuristic sci-fi drama called 2025.



It stars Lim Kay Tong, who coincidentally will also appear in another production with a year as the title, playing Mr Lee Kuan Yew in the upcoming movie, 1965.



How does Lim travel from 10 years in the future to 50 years in the past? In a hot tub time machine, of course.



So is 2025 any good?

Here is Glenn Ong’s Twitter review:


I have to disagree with him here.

VR Man was not funny.

Sure, the short clips of the 1998 series starring James Lye on YouTube are unintentionally hilarious.



But if you ever sit through a complete episode, you will realise it’s no laughing matter. You’ll wish for a hot tub time machine to get back the 60 minutes you wasted watching the show.

But I wasn’t the only who took umbrage at Ong’s tweet.

2025 happens to be produced by Nicholas Lee’s pornographically-named production company, XXX Studios.

In response to Ong dissing his show, Lee retorted: “Spends his entire career talking cock. Even after quitting still talks shit. Fuck Glenn Ong.”

I think it's safe to say Lee thinks Ong is a jerk.



I’m not sure whose side to take in this mini feud as I have been both a critic and a producer of criticised local shows.

Like Ong, I have been frustrated by how unwatchable local shows can be. We haters gonna hate.

On the other hand, I applaud Lee for standing up for his show and the people in his company who worked so hard to produce 2025, although he could’ve used fewer expletives.

As Lee told The Straits Times: “The show represents the collective efforts of over 200 Singaporeans over 14 months under very challenging circumstances.”



All this publicity could’ve even improved the show’s ratings last night.

You know who really should be angry with Ong? The people who worked so hard to produce VR Man all those years ago.

How dare Ong compare VR Man to 2025? What an insult to VR Man.

At least people are still talking about VR Man more than a decade later. You think anyone will even remember 2025 in 2025?

I’m going to be a jerk and say no.

Lim Kay Tong may be Mr Lee Kuan Yew, but he is no James Lye.

- Published in The New Paper, 22 February 2015



EARLIER:

Why VR Man will outlive us all

Why I'm afraid to bump into Glenn Ong

UPDATE: Another 'online spat': Glenn Ong versus... me?


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Sunday, 18 January 2015

Why I'm afraid to bump into Glenn Ong



Sometimes I’m asked whether the famous people I write about have ever responded to my column.

Like, did my former MediaCorp colleague Gurmit Singh reply to my open letter asking him to introduce his open letter-writing daughter Gabrielle to my son after the Forever 21 incident last October?

Did SMRT CEO Desmond Kuek come after me for suggesting that his company should follow parody site SMRT Ltd (Feedback) and have a disclaimer on its Facebook page that says, “Believing in us is like believing that Kong Hee is Jesus”?

And did Ah Boys To Frogmen filmmaker Jack Neo address the objections by some former naval divers last March that he was directing a movie about the Naval Diving Unit despite being an “arsehole” who has “no clue as to what directing a movie requires”, to quote one incensed ex-frogman?



To answer all those questions — no, they have better things to do than bother with a column called “Act Blur”.

I mean, it’s no Heart Truths.

I doubt if they’re even aware I exist. Or perhaps in Gurmit’s case, he would rather pretend I didn’t.

But there have been a few rare occasions where the subjects of this column acknowledged that they were the subjects of this column.

I may not have heard from the SMRT CEO, but online pranksters SMRT Ltd (Feedback) tweeted, “@sm0ng is the first columnist from The New Paper that actually made sense about us,” after I wrote about them two weeks ago.


I just hope they weren’t being sarcastic.

You can never really tell what the reaction would be.

That was why I avoided Mr Baey Yam Keng when I saw the Member of Parliament for Tampines GRC at the Swissotel Vertical Marathon in 2013. This was on the same Sunday I nominated him as the Singapore candidate for People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive.

Would he be flattered? Would he think I was being sarcastic? Or would be insulted that I was interested in him only for his body?

So I kept him at Baey, pun intended.

A photo posted by SM Ong (@sm_ong) on


But you know who I’m afraid to bump into the most?

Glenn Ong.

He was in the news recently for quitting MediaCorp Radio after almost two decades as a DJ there.

I have written about him a few times over the years, usually to make fun of his marriages.

Remember TVMobile? It let you watch TV on the bus. Even though people hated it, complaining about the noise and that it showed too many Chinese programmes, TVMobile inexplicably lasted from 2001 until it was finally put out of its misery at the end of 2009.



In a column celebrating its overdue demise, I expressed amazement that TVMobile lasted longer than Ong’s second marriage.

I wrote:
“And if you take into account that the public trial for TVMobile started in 1999, it actually outlasted both of Ong's marriages to Kate Reyes (2000 to 2003) and Jamie Yeo (2004 to 2009).”

After the article came out, I was a little worried that he would call me out on his radio show and recommend that I should be put to sleep like a mad dog or something.

But I flattered myself. Why would he bother with a nobody like me?

Two years after his break-up with Yeo, Ong announced his engagement to Jean Danker, another MediaCorp radio DJ, like his two ex-wives were.

It was as if the man was addicted to marrying his colleagues. He was going to run out soon.

So I wrote in a column:
“Someone should do an intervention and save him from himself — and also Danker from becoming the next member of his Obedient Ex-Wives Club.”
I braced myself for a response from him, but once again, I flattered myself.



A year later, their wedding plans were put on hold.

Danker told The New Paper in May 2012: “The gowns were beautiful. Then I was like oh-oh, we were jumping the gun. I panicked a bit.”

Even Ong said: “Many times, I feel like I shouldn't have proposed.”

They’re still not married today, although apparently, they’re still engaged.

Did my column have anything to do with their cold feet?

I shouldn’t flatter myself. Even though I met Ong once a long time ago in the 90s, he probably doesn’t even remember I exist.

Then on Jan 7 last year, out of the blue, I received this tweet from “Glenn Egoman Ong”: “Wahaha! Smong Smong...”

It was him!

He does remember I exist. I was flattered and panicking at the same time.

But to my surprise, his tweet wasn’t related to anything I had written about him. It contained a link to an article I wrote about another celebrity called “Why was Ivan Heng watching TV on New Year’s Eve?”


Hmmm, so it’s possible that Ong is aware of my existence and yet hasn’t read any of my columns about him?

Interesting.

I was worried there for a moment.

Last week, it was announced that Ong has a new job as director at a consulting firm called CIR VIS.

So now he has a new bunch of colleagues he can marry.

That’s a relief.

And no, I haven’t heard from Ivan Heng.

- Published in The New Paper, 18 January 2015




UPDATE: Another 'online spat': Glenn Ong versus... me?

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Sunday, 13 November 2011

Will you marry me? (And stay married for more than 72 days?)



When I heard about the guy who proposed to his girlfriend at The New Paper Big Walk last week in front of thousands of other Big Walkers at Resorts World Sentosa, my first thought was: “Spoil market!”

There was also this Malaysian guy who proposed to his girlfriend with a fake Groupon ad online.

And then there was this other guy in Thailand who trained his elephant to write “Will you marry me?” in the sand with its trunk, but the careless quadruped misspelled “marry” as “carry”, causing much hilarity among the girlfriend, zoo visitors and more literate animals.



Okay, I made the last one up, but what’s with these guys making a big production out of popping the big question?

They’re just making it more difficult for the rest of us. Now our girlfriends will have more reasons not to be satisfied with a simple “Let’s a book a flat together” over a greasy plate of char kway teow.

Haven’t we spoiled these women enough? Before you know it, they want extra lup cheong with the char kway teow. Give ’em 2.54cm and they’ll take 1.6km.

The thing is, although we seem to read a lot about these creative marriage proposals, newspapers don’t usually keep track of what happens to the couple afterwards.

Usually (but not always), the woman says yes to avoid embarrassing the guy because of the public nature of such proposals.

It's hard enough to reject someone - or be rejected - without it becoming a YouTube sensation.



Let’s say the woman says yes and goes through with the nuptials, we don’t know how long the marriage actually lasts.

But I suspect a creative marriage proposal - along with a big expensive wedding or an "auspicious" wedding date like 11.11.11 - does not guarantee or even improve the chances for a lasting happy marriage.

Take Kim Kardashian for instance. Her marriage to basketball player Kris Humphries lasted all of 72 days. I have eaten leftovers that lasted longer than that.

How did Humphries propose? He spelled out the words “Will you marry me?” with rose petals. That was pretty creative and romantic.



I repeat, 72 days. If only he had the elephant.

And the wedding reportedly cost US$10 million (S$13 million). I would’ve hated to have to give a hongbao for that wedding dinner.

And now that the celebrity couple have divorced, I don’t think I would’ve gotten my hongbao refunded.

Fortunately, I didn’t give any hongbao for the two local celebrity wedding dinners I attended. (Let’s say I forgot.)

The first was that of Gurmit Singh, who is still married to Melissa. So no refund would’ve been necessary.

The second was that of Mark Richmond and Vernetta Lopez, both of whom have since divorced and married other people. I doubt any of the original wedding guests got their hongbao refunded.

But at least their marriages lasted more than 72 days.

So has mine - and let me tell you, my marriage proposal didn’t involve rose petals, Groupon or Big Walk. But it did involve a big commute.

Before we were married, my wife lived near Katong and I lived on the other side of Singapore in Jurong.

After about a year of dating, she got tired of transversing the island almost on a daily basis and suggested we should get married just to cut the travelling time.

So it wasn’t so much a marriage proposal, but a suggested solution to a logistics problem. I took her suggestion under advisement and eventually agreed to its implementation. Viral videos are not made of this.

But despite the less than reality TV-worthy beginnings, my marriage still outlasted Mark Richmond and Vernetta Lopez’s - and two of Glenn Ong’s. (Touch wood.) I’m now gunning for three Glenn Ong marriages.



So guys, don’t be deterred by all those market spoilers.

Just be reassured that Singapore law requires you to be married for way longer than 72 days before you can file for divorce.

Skip the elephant.

- Published in The New Paper, 13 November 2011

EARLIER: Will Glenn Ong run out of colleagues to marry?
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Sunday, 18 September 2011

Kumar lied! I will never believe celebrities again

Spoiler alert!

Kumar is homosexual.

That's what has been revealed in the new book about the comedian entitled Kumar: From Rags To Drag, launched last Tuesday.



Now you don’t have to buy the book. I just saved you $33. You’re welcome.

What do you mean you already knew he’s gay?

Huh? Everyone knew? How did everyone know?

So what if he dresses up as a woman as part of his comedy act? That doesn’t automatically mean he’s gay.

Jack Neo used to dress up as Liang Po Po and Liang Xi Mei on TV.

Ivan Heng dressed up as Emily in the play Emily Of Emerald Hill.

Glen Goei dressed up as a man playing a woman in M Butterfly on stage.

Irene Ang dressed up as Rosie Phua on Phua Chu Kang.

Michelle Chong dressed up as Barbarella on The Noose.

Does Dennis Chew still dress up as Aunty Lucy?

Surely, they all can't be gay.

No, wait, Irene Ang and Michelle Chong are women. Sorry, my mistake. I got a little carried away there. Where was I? Oh yah...

Can’t a man dress up like a woman without people jumping to conclusion that he’s gay?

I used to enjoy trying on my mother’s underwear as a teenager and I’m not gay.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.



But you know the biggest reason I thought Kumar wasn’t gay?

Because he said so.

Back in 1993, he told The New Paper: “I’m not gay.”

And I believed him.

I mean, didn’t everyone?

Maybe I'm naive, but I trust celebrities. Why else would advertisers pay celebrities so much money to endorse their products?

I took Imedeen pills for my skin because Zoe Tay said her secret was that she swallowed. Don't tell me she actually spat.



When confronted with the gay question, Kumar could've said “no comment” or “I don't want to talk about my personal life” or “none of your business”.

But he addressed it head-on. I remember being very impressed by that.

Now, of course, he has revealed in the book that it was all a lie.

The issue isn’t that he’s gay. The issue is that he was dishonest.

I’m so disillusioned.

If you can’t trust a cross-dressing comedian, who in this world can you trust?

I haven’t felt this disillusioned since Glenn Ong and Jamie Yeo split up in 2009.

Back in 2004, he had told The New Paper that she was “the one”. Then earlier this year, he said his new fiancée Jean Danker is "the one".



How can I believe you now, Glenn?

In a few years, will Georgina Chang be “the one” next?

By the same token, how can I trust Kumar now?

If he could lie about not being gay 18 years ago, could he also be lying this time round about being gay just to get publicity for the book?

Maybe in a few years when he has a new movie to promote, he will admit that he's not gay after all.

And then a few years after that, when he has a new line of designer saris to promote, he can admit to being gay again.

This gay thing can be like a recyclable publicity resource for him.

But I’ve learned my lesson. I shall never believe anything celebrities say again.

The next time I see Gurmit Singh host a show on TV and say, “We have a great show for you tonight,” I will retort, “No, you don’t.”

That’ll teach him.

- Published in The New Paper, 18 September 2011


Hello S M Ong,

When I watched Jack Neo cross-dressing, my comment was 'he can act as a woman' but when I see Kumar with his mannerism, my impression was 'he is a pondan'. No debate as to why i categorized and pigeon-holed them like that. My two cents' opinion.

Thanks
Teo
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Sunday, 26 June 2011

Kate, Jamie, Jean: Will Glenn Ong run out of colleagues to marry?



Two years ago, when celebrity radio deejay Glenn Ong revealed that he was dating fellow MediaCorp deejay Jean Danker after splitting from another deejay Jamie Yeo, I declared Ong the Brad Pitt of Singapore.

The most common reaction I got, especially from women, was “Eeeeee!”

I had to explain that of course, I wasn’t suggesting that Ong looked anything like Hollywood movie star Pitt, a two-time Sexiest Man Alive and Angelina Jolie’s housemate.

I was merely comparing Ong’s three high-profile relationships with deejays Danker, Yeo and Kate Reyes with Pitt’s three high-profile relationships with actresses Jolie, Jennifer Aniston and Gwyneth Paltrow.

At the end of my explanation, the most common reaction I got, especially from women, was another “Eeeeee!”

So I wasn’t surprised that when Ong’s engagement to Danker was announced last week, someone tweeted: “Why is it that when I heard Glenn Ong proposed to Jean Danker I went ‘eeeee’ instead of ‘awwww’?”

Maybe it's because Ong has been divorced enough times to start his own Obedient Ex-wives Club.

It’s like the man is addicted. As someone else put it on Twitter: “Glenn Ong needs to go to wife rehab.”

In an interview with The New Paper on Tuesday, Ong said he struggled to kick the habit. “Deep down, I wanted to get married, but I also resisted it...I was stressing myself out over this for the past year.”

But like most addicts, Ong managed to convince himself that this time will be the last. He said of Danker: “I really, really feel she’s the one.”

Flashback to Nov 1 2004, one month before his second wedding, this was what Ong said about his future second ex-wife, Jaime Yeo, in The New Paper: “Our love seems to be growing, every day is exciting, and I know she's the one.”

Sound familiar?

How many “the ones” are there?

And why do they all have to be fellow MediaCorp deejays?

As another person tweeted: “I think at some point Glenn Ong's gonna run out of colleagues to marry.”

Also on Twitter: “Glenn Ong & Jean Danker to marry next year. Pundits wondering who else in #mediacorp he can date if it fails again.”

On the contrary, as a pundit, I know exactly who else at MediaCorp he can date after Danker, thanks to a reader who used to work with Ong (but didn’t date him, I think, since the reader is a guy) and wrote to me after reading my “Glenn Ong is our Brad Pitt” column in The New Paper.

On Ong dating Danker, the reader wrote: “We think it may be a fantasy going back to his Perfect 10 days when he worked with Kate, Jamie, Jean, and Georgina Chang.

“If he's after ‘The Full Set’, somebody better tell Georgina she’s next!”

Georgina Chang is a senior creative director at MediaCorp – and a former radio deejay. She also used to be a sports columnist for The New Paper and is divorced from Darryl David. She’s hot.



I'm not sure whether Chang should feel flattered or be very, very afraid.



In last week’s interview with The New Paper, Ong admitted that people might say “I’m on the road to becoming Singapore’s Elizabeth Taylor.”

Taylor, who died in March, was married eight times!

(Although to be Taylor, Ong also has to marry the same person twice and one spouse has to die in a horrific plane crash.)

So I was wrong. Who knew that when I called Ong Singapore’s Brad Pitt, I was actually selling him short?

One of Taylor’s most famous movie roles was Cleopatra, queen of the Nile, whereas Ong may be the king of denial when it comes to his addiction.



Friends don’t let friends marry eight times. Ong is almost three-eighth way there.

Someone should do an intervention and save him from himself – and also Danker from becoming the next member of his Obedient Ex-wives Club.

Does anybody have Georgina Chang’s number?

- Published in The New Paper, 26 June 2011



UPDATE:

Glenn Ong and Jean Danker's wedding on hold

Glenn Ong's first wife Kate Reyes died in November 2014

Why I'm afraid to bump into Glenn Ong

Still a jerk? Glenn Ong versus Nicholas Lee (and VR Man)

DJs Glenn Ong and Jean Danker to wed in December 2016

Please invite me to your wedding, Glenn Ong (I missed your first two)

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Sunday, 20 December 2009

How TVMobile lasted longer than two Glenn Ong marriages



It's a time for joy and celebration. And it's not just because it's Christmas.

What all Singaporeans are celebrating this week - regardless of race, language or religion - is not the birth of Jesus Christ or Singapore’s SEA games medals or the opening of the Uniqlo megastore at 313@Somerset, but the death of TVMobile.

Last Tuesday, as a Christmas present to commuters, MediaCorp announced that it will finally be putting the much loathed mobile TV service out of its misery on New Year's Day - after nine long, baffling years.

Baffling because ever since its multi-million-dollar launch on 1,500 air-conditioned SBS buses in February 2001, TVMobile has been reviled as a service that no one asked for and no one wanted. Yet, it managed to outlast Glenn Ong's second marriage.

And if you take into account that the public trial for TVMobile started in 1999, it actually outlasted both of Glenn's marriages to Kate Reyes (2000 to 2003) and Jamie Yeo (2004 to 2009).

Yes, MediaCorp was more committed to its troubled digital TV platform than Glenn was to his two hot wives.

In its 15 Dec media release announcing the long overdue euthanasia of TVMobile, MediaCorp described it as "a rich source of entertainment and information to commuters".

Commuters would beg to differ. For much of the new millennium, they have written to the press complaining that they could not "switch channels, lower volumes, or turn off the broadcast altogether".

A day after the 2001 launch, one letter writer even wished for its "early demise". His wish didn't come true. Nine years later is not what you can call "early".

MediaCorp's response at the time was: "As with any new technology and service, there will be some teething problems. It may also take some time for people to adapt to the new service."

And how people adapted was by plugging in earphones and looking out the bus window.

Then came the gripes that when TVMobile wasn't rerunning Just For Laughs ad nauseam, it was showing too many Chinese programmes, which didn't reflect Singapore's multiracial society. If there's anything worse than noise pollution, it's noise pollution in a language you don't understand.

Some have suggested that TVMobile is so annoying that it has driven people away from taking public transportation and forcing them to buy cars, thus increasing our carbon emissions.

So in a way, TVMobile is also responsible for killing the Earth. Is it a coincidence that MediaCorp announced the discontinuation of TVMobile in the same week as the Copenhagen climate talks?



Or maybe MediaCorp just realised how lame it is to have communal TV on public transport in the age of PSPs, iPods and other ubiquitous portable personal entertainment devices.

Actually, it's simply because MediaCorp's contract with SBS Transit is expiring.

Whatever the reason, with TVMobile flickering out for good, many commuters will be having a merrier Christmas and happier new year.

But now what is SBS Transit going to do with the 3,600 dead screens on its buses?

- Published in The New Paper, 20 December 2009

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Friday, 6 March 2009

No no, it's not incestuous at all: Glenn Ong is our Brad Pitt



“I can't wait to see who Glenn marries next.”

That was what I wrote in a column a week after MediaCorp radio deejay Glenn Ong announced his separation from his second wife, former deejay Jamie Yeo, on Valentine’s Day eve.

Now, only less than two weeks later, my man hasn't let me down.

Glenn, whose first wife is deejay Kate Reyes, has declared his love for fellow deejay Jean Danker who used to date fellow deejay Daniel Ong and Don Richmond, a former deejay.

Don, by the way, is also brother to former deejay Mark Richmond who married and divorced deejay Vernetta Lopez.

Did someone say “incestuous”?

Come on, it’s not like they’re related to each other. (Well, except Don and Mark, but let’s not go there.)

Jean once told The New Paper in 2007 that the deejays tend to pair up with each other because they were “such a tight-knit family”.

Now that’s just wrong. If you’re a family, wouldn’t that lead to inbreeding?

If that’s not alarming enough, Glenn also said in 2007 that having known Jean since she was 16, she was like a “daughter” to him, even though he was only seven years older.

I’m just grateful he didn’t go so far as to adopt her. That would just be too Woody Allen.



To be fair, there are numerous other local non-deejay celeb couplings in MediaCorp and no one accuses them of the “i” word.

Like Fann Wong and Christopher Lee, Evelyn Tan and Darren Lim, Xiang Yun and Edmund Chen, Chen Liping and Rayson Tan, Pierre Png and Andrea De Cruz, Tan Kheng Hua and Lim Yu Beng, Wong Li-lin and Allan Wu, James Lye and Diana Ser, and yes, even Sheikh Haikel and Annabelle Francis – all of whom have acted on local TV.

So why are our actors’ love lives so much less interesting than our deejays’?

Because none of the TV people are as prolific and committed a serial celebrity colleague dater as Glenn Ong.

Even Robin Leong only dated Fiona Xie and Jamie Yeo. Glenn topped Robin by actually marrying Jamie.

Glenn is like our Brad Pitt, who also scored a hat-trick by dating Gwyneth Paltrow, marrying Jennifer Aniston and now playing house with Angelina Jolie.



Which means that Kate Reyes is Gwyneth, Jamie Yeo is Jennifer and Jean Danker is Angelina.

I have just one question: Does that mean Daniel Ong or Don Richmond is Billy Bob Thornton?

Answer: Don is Billy Bob while Daniel is Jonny Lee Miller.



- Published in The New Paper, 6 March 2009

Hi,

Just had to drop you a line to say your column on Glenn and Jean was hilarious.

The 91.3 team, most of whom have worked with one or both of them, myself included, have gotten a great laugh out of it.

We think it may be a fantasy going back to his Perfect 10 days when he worked withy Kate, Jamie, Jean, and Georgina Chang. If he's after "The Full Set", somebody better tell Georgina she's next!

Cheers :)

Jamie Meldrum
Program Director 91.3
SPHUnionWorks Pte Ltd


UPDATE: Will Glenn Ong run out of colleagues to marry?
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