Some global ‘Idol’ stars you’ve (mostly) never heard of

It was a British show, “Pop Idol,” that started it all in 2001. “Pop Idol” begat “American Idol,” and “American Idol” begat many, many other "Idols," from Albania to Vietnam and beyond.

It was actually another British show, “Britain’s Got Talent,” that hit an apex of sorts for the genre in 2009, when it brought to the stage an awkward, frumpy Scottish woman who sang in her church choir and appeared to have been selected solely for comic relief. Until, that is, she opened her mouth and began to sing “I Dreamed a Dream” from the musical “Les Miserables.”

Susan Boyle became an instant international sensation, a YouTube superstar whose performance was watched tens of millions of times in the months after she appeared. It led to overnight fame, a hit album, a stage musical and a small role in a film, “The Christmas Candle.”

Some version of that dream is what drives “Idol” contestants the world over. Here are a few examples:

Arab world: Mohammed Assaf

Mohammed Assaf caught the hearts and ears of the Arab world when he won “Arab Idol” in its second season in 2013.

It didn’t hurt that Assaf, then 23, bore a physical resemblance to the late and legendary Egyptian singer Abdel Halim Hafez, or that he hailed from the Gaza Strip, which won him the empathy of millions of fans across the Arab world.

Assaf grew up in the refugee camp of Khan Yunis. It took him two days to travel from Gaza to the auditions in Cairo and reportedly had to beg Egyptian border security to let him into the country. The Cairo hotel where auditions were taking place had closed its doors by the time he arrived. Assaf  jumped over the hotel wall but was turned down when he asked for a number to line up for the audition.

Undeterred, he started singing loudly in the corridor where other participants were waiting. Amazed by Assaf’s talent, a fellow Palestinian applicant gave him his number to audition in his place.

Assaf drew attention during the show by, among other things, singing a Palestinian nationalist anthem.

Assaf’s debut album sold more than 100,000 copies, and he continues to be among the top performers in the Arab world. His road to success inspired Palestinian director Hany Abu-Assad to make the movie “The Idol,” based on Assaf’s story.

-- Amro Hassan in Cairo

Canada: Carly Rae Jepsen

Carly Rae Jepsen didn’t win “Canadian Idol” -- she finished third in 2007 in the fifth season of the show. It was enough, however, to launch her on a career that has brought her international fame.

Four years after earning second runner-up status on the series, which ran on the CTV network from 2003 to 2008, Jepsen released “Call Me Maybe” in 2011. The following year, the teen pop song became a global earworm, selling more than 18 million copies and dominating the music charts worldwide. It was also nominated as Song of the Year at the 2013 Grammy Awards, won a slew of other prizes, attracted high-profile fans such as fellow Canuck Justin Bieber.

The British Columbian-born Jepson, now 30, has also broadened her range to the stage, appearing on Broadway in 2014 in the title role of the Tony Award-winning musical, “Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella.”

On Thursday, Jepsen begins a cross-Canada tour as one of the opening acts for the wildly popular Canadian pop-rock band, Hedley. Its 31-year-old lead singer, fellow B.C. native Jacob Hoggard, is another “Canadian Idol” alumnus, who finished third in 2004.

-- Christopher Guly in Ottawa, Canada

India: Abhijeet Sawant

In 2005, “Indian Idol,” a licensed adaptation using the “Pop Idol” and “American Idol” format, hit TV screens in India and was widely embraced. Abhijeet Sawant, a middle-class 24-year-old from the western state of Maharashtra, was crowned the winner and earned a year’s contract with Sony Music as well as the equivalent of about $200,000.

The same year, he recorded a song in the Bollywood movie "Aashiq Banaya Aapne" and launched his first album, "Aapka Abhijeet Sawant." In 2007, his second album, "Junoon," was released and later that year, he participated in “Asian Idol,” where he finished third. 

Ten years later, he has not become the sensation everyone thought he would be. He tried his hand at acting, appeared as himself in a romantic TV series and also participated in a couple of reality shows. He co-hosted “Indian Idol” in Season 5. 

He also joined the Shiv Sena political party -- an ally of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi -- in its bid to attract younger supporters. 

-- Shashank Bengali in Mumbai, India

Germany: Mark Medlock

The most successful product of Germany’s version of “American Idol,” called “Deutschland sucht den Superstar” (“Germany Seeks the Superstar”), was a dual-national German American named Mark Medlock who went on to sell more than 3 million records in a bright but ephemeral career that began after he won the contest in 2007. He holds the distinction of selling more English-language records than any other German performer.

Medlock was influenced by his father, a gospel singer from Georgia who moved to Germany, and he became the protégé of the show’s curmudgeon-like host, Dieter Bohlen, Germany’s answer to Simon Cowell, who later produced his records. Medlock, who grew up in poverty in a small town near Frankfurt and worked as a trash collector for a while, became an overnight tabloid star with his newfound fame, moving to Berlin with his three cats.

Medlock and Bohlen, who wrote the songs, produced seven top 10 hits for Medlock in Germany, three of which made it to No. 1. Openly gay, Medlock gave regular interviews in which he spoke about his failed marriage, how his mother died of cancer and his father from a heart attack two years later.  But he and Bohlen split in 2011, and Medlock’s career was soon over.

Since 2012, he has mainly been in the news for his arrests -- one after police said they found him holding an ax during an argument with his new manager and another for losing a lawsuit at an event at which he insulted the moderator.

-- Erik Kirschbaum in Berlin

China: Jodie Cooper

"Chinese Idol" aired for two seasons, in 2013 and 2014, and its two winners — Li Xiangxiang and Sinkey Zheng — both went on to release albums but failed to become household names.

Yet in the second season, one contestant — a British singer named Jodie Cooper — captured the nation’s attention twice: first when she sang a Chinese pop ballad on air, and the following year when she married one of her Chinese admirers.

Cooper married Yang Tan — a humble bartender from southwestern China’s Sichuan province, who spoke no English — at his rural hometown last May, according to a report in the Western China Metropolis Daily newspaper. Yang met Cooper in 2012 while working at a bar in Xiamen, a city in southeast China, where Cooper was performing. He added her on the Chinese chat application WeChat, and they communicated with the aid of translation software.

According to the report, Yang proposed to her last year on Valentine's Day; he spent more than a half-year’s savings on an engagement ring to win her affection.

Pictures of the traditional wedding went viral on the Chinese Internet: the couple stood beneath an arch of pink-and-white balloons -- Cooper in a red and gold dress, Yang in a casual suit.

According to her Facebook page, Cooper is now employed as a singer at clubs in Huizhou and Shenzhen, cities in the Pearl River Delta.

-- Jonathan Kaiman in Beijing