"Homeless Man With the Golden Voice" Is Broke Again, But Still Clean
"I'm going to forget about the fact that I should be a millionaire now," Ted Williams told the Columbus Dispatch this week.
Williams, once homeless and struggling with crack and alcohol, became famous in 2011 as "the homeless man with the golden voice," leading to radio appearances, a six-figure book advance, and a job as the voice of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese.
Three years later, Williams told Doral Chenoweth—the reporter who first "discovered" him—that he hasn't used drugs in years, but that a series of bad financial decisions has left him without a car or a place of his own.
Williams says two different sets of managers squandered his money, starting while he was in treatment, and admits he signed "some things I shouldn't have signed."
"Do you own any furniture?" Chenoweth asks.
"I own nothing. I own nothing."
Williams still has a regular radio gig, though, and is under contract with Kraft for another year. His story isn't the impossible rags-to-riches tale the Internet was cheering for when his voice first "went viral," but he's surviving.
His next step, he says, is volunteering at a soup kitchen on Fridays.
