Adam Lambert didn't win the eighth season of American Idol, but you would never know it.
Sixteen months after the 27-year-old Californian finished second to Kris Allen in the reality contest's finale, Lambert has released a commercially successful debut, launched his international Glam Nation tour and gained hundreds of thousands of fans (or 'Fanberts') the world over.
He performs in Hong Kong on Tuesday night.
'I feel like I did win,' Lambert says in an e-mail interview that, sadly, robs him of the charisma that is undeniable in person. 'It was a pretty stressful week leading up to the finale and it was a lot of work. After it was done, I felt like I could breathe. I got signed to a major label and I got to put out an album. That was what I had wanted from the show and I got it.'
Lambert's unabashed theatricality - his penchant for tight leather, eyeliner, black nail polish and stage costumes that hint at an inner male Gaga - is what made him stand out from the get-go. Simon Fuller, super-manager and granddaddy of the Idol franchise, described him as 'Mark Bolan meets Bowie, with a touch of Freddie Mercury and the sexiness of Prince'.
'Freddie Mercury is definitely one of my major influences,' Lambert says. 'I think that there is major theatricality among female performers today, and I still can't figure out why it is missing in [men]. Hopefully the interest will break through and become more visible.' For now, he seems content to be its 21st-century poster child.