The truths and lies of Nathan Hartono

Video: Vina Chia

It’s not just Team Singapore who’s doing Singapore proud over at the Rio Olympics - homeboy Nathan Hartono is over in China repping our little red dot in Sing!China, the rebranded reality talent show previously known The Voice of China.

Prior to making a splash on the programme - his performance was given the thumbs up by all four judges, Jay Chou, Na Ying, Wang Feng and Harlem Yu - he’s been on scene for a good decade, working his way up to the top since his debut album in 2006. For the record, in the first week of him opening his Weibo account, he amassed over 22,000 notifications, which he put off opening for a while, at least until he got around to “being a better person and respond (to them)”.

While the subsequent rounds have yet to air on television, Nathan has been shuttling between China and Singapore to attend his schedules, with the 25-year-old currently in Shanghai. He posted on his Twitter that he lost his voice on August 11 and is currently still in the midst of trying to get back into tip-top shape. (Get well soon, Nathan!)

Before he hopped over to Shanghai, he popped by Mediacorp’s campus to participate in the filming of Toggle’s upcoming original series, 2219 (which can also be read as two truths, one lie). In between that and dropping by the 987FM studio for the show, he gamely spoke to us for a good five minutes even though he was running behind schedule and slightly intoxicated.

The lightweight, who professes to not drinking alcohol, was suffering from a throbbing head after downing a couple of drinks and “15,000 gross things” as part of the show. Despite that, he answered our questions with gusto and a big warm smile.

“The worst lie I’ve ever told… I set fire to my mom’s bathroom once because I was playing with nail polish remover and a lighter. A lot of things got burned down, including towels and floor mats and baskets and I lied to my mom that I left a candle on and it burned a little bit, (which was why there was a) burning smell in the bathroom,” he grinned. “I threw away all the evidence. She knows now that I set fire to the bathroom so I’m not outing myself.”

What then is the white lie that he tells the most often? “I just left the house,” Nathan admitted. “I’m usually pretty good with time and I’m five to seven minutes late at most - I was about an hour late for this shoot but it’s not my fault - traffic was bad, there was an accident, I swear that’s not a lie.”

“It’s just that usually when I leave the house I say that I’m on the way - I think that’s a pretty constant lie that many people tell,” he added with a sheepish smile.

Lies aside, truths can sometimes be harder to tell than lies. The hardest truth he’s ever had to admit to someone was one simple line, “This isn’t going to work out.” Ouch.

Related: Local singers who did us proud in overseas talent shows