Just over a year ago when the world first saw Ted Williams, he was homeless and standing at the side of a road holding a sign that said he had a great voice.
Now the man with the golden voice has a much different look. He has a clean haircut, glasses, is no longer wearing a camouflage jacket and is living under a roof.
Williams shot to fame after the Columbus Dispatch newspaper posted a video shot by Doral Chenoweth. Williams was standing at the side of a road with a sign that read, "I have a God given gift of voice." Curious, Chenoweth asked Williams to say something and the video took off.
Chenoweth caught up with Williams at the end of last month and said he has completed a three-month drug rehabilitation program, is off the streets and is working. He is living just outside Columbus, Ohio in Dublin and is doing voice-overs for a Boston-based cable network.
The TV show Entertainment Tonight also met up with Williams as he celebrated a year after his video went viral.
"A year ago today I was living in tents under bridges, smoking crack, doing all the wild things," he said in the video. Now he has a fireplace, a flat-screen TV and a walk-in closet that doubles as a recording studio.
"What a difference a year makes," he said as he admits to not being able to dream of living in a spacious home more than a year ago. "It's a halleluiah moment every day I wake up."
But it hasn't been an easy year for Williams as he shot to fame.
Shortly after the video went viral, the Ohio paper that posted the video was inundated with calls and emails offering Williams opportunities. The Cleveland Cavaliers offered him a full-time job doing voice over work and offered to pay the mortgage on a home. He also made the rounds on national morning shows including one where he reunited with his mother.
However, the quick fame appeared to be too much for Williams to handle.
Less than a week after the video went viral, he was detained by police in Hollywood after being involved in a verbal altercation with his daughter in a hotel room. They were staying at the hotel prior to an appearance on the Dr. Phil show. Williams reunited with his ex-wife and five of his nine children on the show.
The day after the Dr. Phil show announced Williams was heading to rehab.
"(Williams) agreed to go to a private facility following a lengthy one-on-one conversation with Dr. Phil," read a statement issued by the show.
"I've told him it's not going to be easy and it's going to take a lot of hard work," said Dr. Phil in the statement in an Access Hollywood article. "It might be a long journey for him, but this is a big step in the right direction."
In the twenty years prior to becoming an overnight Internet sensation, Williams had been charged with robbery, escape, forgery and drug possession.
Now, both Chenoweth and ET report Williams is sober and doing much better.
His book titled A Golden Voice: How faith, hard work and humility brought me from the streets to salvation is set to be released in May.
(Access Hollywood image)
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