Q&A With Clay And Ruben

Billboard.com did a Q&A with ‘American Idol’ champ Ruben Studdard and runner-up Clay Aiken. Asked how old he was when he first started to sing, Aiken responded, “Maybe three. When I was five, there was a high school in the area that did a winter dance, and they had a mascot every year who would sing. It was 1984. I sang ‘Islands In the Stream,’ a big No. 1 hit, and won. I remember being up there and everybody was laughing at me and I said, ‘Mom, they’re laughing at me,’ and she said, ‘No, they think you’re cute’.”