village voice > news > This Is Constantine Maroulis. He Wishes You Knew That. by Angela Ashman

With a blow-dryer in one hand and pomade in the other, Constantine Maroulis was trying to fix his voluminous hair, which was in a mass of curls after being pinned up underneath a brown mullet wig for his Friday-night performance of The Wedding Singer on Broadway. The room had two mirrors, two stools, a refrigerator, a sink, two bottles of Veuve Clicquot champagne, a six-inch stack of unanswered fan mail, a food gift basket with Greek flags sticking out of it (one of Maroulis's many nicknames is Greek Boy), and about a dozen empty vases that had been filled with roses and flowers. The costume rack for Maroulis, best known to Broadway audiences and most Americans as the fifth runner-up in the fourth season of American Idol, was stuffed with '80s outfits, including one sparkly white glove and a red jacket reminiscent of Michael Jackson in "Thriller." The names on the rack didn't identify the clothes as belonging to Maroulis; instead the label read "Matthew Saldivar," an actor who has left the show to make room for Maroulis.

After the 31-year-old rocker finished fixing his hair, even fluffing the hairs on his chest a bit with the blow-dryer, he sprayed a coat of Axe deodorant all over his torso, put on a purplish T-shirt with an indescribable graphic design, yanked on a pair of ornately embroidered beige cowboy boots, and put his arms through the sleeves of a slick black leather jacket. As he prepared to leave, he looked one more time at the only photo that decorated his otherwise nondescript dressing room—of Maroulis standing with his arm around a pudgy middle-aged woman, the fan who sent the photo to him. He smiled a little as he looked at it, as though it reminded him of those who found pleasure in standing next to a real live star.

Tonight a woman Maroulis had met recently—at one of the rock performances at bars and clubs that now fill his schedule—and who had been writing to him on his MySpace page was going to meet him backstage. He seemed interested to get to know her because they shared New Jersey roots. "She's, like, a very sexy Jersey girl," he said to a visitor as he prepared to reacquaint himself with her in a few minutes.

Maroulis is always the last cast member to leave the Al Hirschfeld Theatre on West 45th Street to sign autographs for fans. But he at last finished with his post-show primping and was ready to face his adoring public. At the bottom of the stairs he paused, took a deep breath, and said, "All right, let's go for it." He then stepped out onto the sidewalk and stopped for a moment as about 100 women and girls screamed his name and pushed to get closer to the metal barricade. Women held their playbills out to be signed and snapped his photo. Patiently Maroulis looked into every camera with either a straightforward grin or his famous American Idol pout, a sort of puppy-dog look that involves tilting his head down, gazing up with his brown bedroom eyes, and sticking out his bottom lip.

A woman standing at the stage door called to Maroulis, who at first seemed confused. Then he remembered: It was the very sexy Jersey girl, a skinny brunette, wearing a low-cut black top and pants, standing with her two blonde friends.

"Oh, hey!" Maroulis said.

"You walked right by us," she said.

"I did?" he replied, quizzically.

After talking with them for a few minutes Maroulis returned to signing autographs, giving hugs, and having his long hair stroked by dozens of strange, reaching hands. It took nearly 30 minutes before he wrestled himself free of the throng and jumped into a Chrysler 300 luxury sedan and sped away, alone in the backseat, leaving the very sexy Jersey girl behind.

"I think she's married," he said.

Since it burst into the American pop culture consciousness in the summer of 2002 as an immediate Top 10 sensation, American Idol has become as enduring a part of the culture as The Ed Sullivan Show was to a previous generation, attracting 35 million viewers to its finale last season. When Maroulis was voted off the show in April 2005, just before entering the final five, it represented a huge upset for the many fans who had fallen in love with his rocker persona and his lanky, casual sex appeal. As one of the first self-proclaimed "rockers" to earn a finalist spot, he achieved front-runner status when Paula Abdul, one of the show's three judges, who was highly susceptible to masculine charms, had proclaimed him the "one to beat." She cried on air when he left the competition. But Maroulis assured Abdul and his fans that there was nothing to worry about.

"I'm gonna keep rockin' " were his parting words. Continue

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