Sanjaya Sets The World On Fire

Angelina. Cher. Elton. Now add Sanjaya to the list of celebrities who are easily identifiable by just one name.

The 17-year-old from Washington state, who was voted off "American Idol" last week after a lengthy — some say too lengthy — run, told "The Early Show's" Hannah Storm that he never set out to become a household name.

"I just wanted to sing on TV," he said.

His much-maligned singing skills — "Idol" judge Simon Cowell called him everything from "horrendous" to "boring" — brought him both the joys and pains of fame.

On the day he was going to be voted out, Sanjaya recalled, "I was kind of down in the dumps. The main reason I was crying so much is because I was leaving everybody. We'd really become a family, and it was hard."

He said he prefers to look at Cowell's barbed comments as a learning experience. "I learned not to let it get to me," he said. "I think that a lot of his negativity was him saying, 'hey, step it up.'"

Malakar didn't spend a lot of time imagining himself as the "Idol" winner because, "I was thinking about getting through each week. … I didn't want to look too far in the future because I was afraid I'd get too overwhelmed."

Soon, though, shock jock Howard Stern was supporting his run for the "Idol" crown and he was even being parodied on "Saturday Night Live," an experience he said he found "really fun" because "I like laughing with myself. I think that's really important to be able to do. But like Howard Stern and votefortheworst.com — anyone who's going to vote for me based on that is going to vote for me a couple of times, not for two hours."

And as if to demonstrate the breadth of his fan base, a huge band of supporters cheered Malakar during his interview with Storm on the Plaza.

Storm asked Malakar about his decision to get a GED diploma instead of finishing high school, a move that critics claim will influence his young admirers.

"I'm happy with it for myself," he said. "I think that it's really whatever works best for you. In my case, I got [the GED] right before I went to the Top 24 [on "Idol"]. So I already knew what I had lined up for me, the education and the career I wanted to do. I still want to go to college. I'm not giving up school and going to be a musician at all. And I think it's really important to do what works for you, not what Sanjaya did."