Even as Jordin Sparks, the 17-year-old girl, got crowned American Idol winner, the fuss over Sanjaya Malakar continued. At the show finale on Wednesday night in Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles, the hair-raising Idol finalist, wearing a printed white collared shirt with the top three buttons open, got the most screams.

He also performed 'You really got me' at the show with Joe Perry, the Aerosmith lead guitarist. One newspaper reviewer Friday wrote that the producers of the Kodak show played up Sanjaya to the point of nausea.

When Sanjaya appeared on Friday on Larry King Live along with other finalists, the host kept asking everybody what the fuss over Sanjaya was and whether others felt jealous that he was hogging all the attention. They made appropriate noises, but Sanjaya himself said the attention he got was "weird".

Asked what his plans were, Sanjaya said he would continue to make music but he really wanted to be an entertainer. "Act too?" Larry King prompted. "Yes, act too," the teenager replied. He may as well, since he became controversial for his "underwhelming voice and overwhelming hairstyles".

For the present, Sanjaya and the other finalists are being taken on a concert tour.

Washington boy Sanjaya is the son of a Bengali father who come to the US as a Hare Krishna pujari, and Italian American mother. He and his sister, Shyamali, lived with their mother after their parents' divorce. Shyamali had also auditioned for American Idol, but didn't make the cut.

Jordin Sparks was picked winner of the Idol's sixth season by 74 million votes. The Arizona native had earlier appeared as a finalist in Star Search and America's Most Talented Kids. The big-built girl also had a stint as a print model for a plus-size fashion line.