Phoenix Leow
After a gruelling 13 weeks and fierce competition from contestants like breakdancers, Luminiq Crew, singer-songwriter, Jill-Marie Thomas emerged as the winner of One Moment of Glory (OMG). Not only did she win the hearts of the judges and Singaporeans, she brought home the grand prize of $50,000.
UrbanWire had a chat with Jill-Marie about her win and plans after OMG.
UW: How do you feel right now?
JM: I think it’s sort of a surreal feeling right now, it hasn’t sunk in yet but I would say it’s amazing. This whole ride has been amazing, yeah, it’s just awesome because I never knew I could win the first prize.
UW: How do you plan to spend the $50,000?
JM: I’m going to give half to my mum so that she can retire and relax and the other half, I’m going to spend on my family members and friends and basically invest whatever’s that’s left and think about the future.
UW: Is there any specific thing or interest that you want to spend on?
JM: I haven’t thought about it. I guess what I am going to do for myself is actually put the money aside, so I can relax comfortably and live with my mum.
UW: What do you think set you apart from the rest of the contestants and convinced Singapore to vote for you?
JM: I think we all put a lot of hard work, passion and soul into this competition but I guess at the end of the day, what set me apart from the rest was that because I’m a singer, I have the opportunity to connect with the audience and interact. I just love performing whenever I’m onstage and I want to have a good time with everybody in the studio.
UW: How and when did you start singing?
JM: Singing has always been a part of my life because my family are made up of singers and musicians. My mum herself is a singer and I definitely got my talent from her, not the good looks unfortunately, and I pretty much used to go watch my mum sing karaoke sometimes.
For song writing, ironically, I never joined a choir. Song writing started when I was in secondary school when I picked up the guitar and taught myself. I started playing songs and when I was 15, I wrote my first song. After that I just continued writing and funnily enough, people enjoyed my music and they came and asked if I would like to perform for events and stuff like that.
The ball just kept on rolling and it never stopped.
I think the best thing that happened for me was that I do gigs and everybody enjoyed my music and at the same time one of my friends told me, I should go online. That I should use Youtube and MySpace and stuff like that. I went online and it’s been amazing.
I think one of the main things that keep me going is the support from my family and friends and the fans out there. On Youtube, I get a lot of support from people coming to me and messaging me, “Oh your music is so awesome”, “Your songs, especially your originals, spoke to me and it got me through hard times”.
You know it just takes one person to tell you that they like your music. That’s how I started and continued going on in my singer songwriter journey.
UW: What are your future plans after OMG?
JM: What are my future plans, well, I have to go back to work proper and give my 110%. My bosses have been waiting for OMG to be over but apart from that I’m just going to let it ride and see how it goes because after this competition, I don’t want to, you know, plan everything. It’s just going to be like after this competition if I get gigs and everything, I’ll just do it.
Because for me, I think it’s the money, yeah I’ve won it, it’s my one moment of glory but I’m going back to being Jill-Marie Thomas, the same one that everybody knows. And who knows what’s going to happen.
UW: Are you looking toward to releasing an album?
JM: Oh yeah! That answers your question: what do I want to do with my money! I want to make an album before I hit the age of 30; I want to make a music album with my originals and stuff. It’s not something that I want to make lots of money from but it’s my passion to put out my own original music.
Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to sing my originals on the show but I am a singer-songwriter so I hope that I can actually release my album with my original songs, even if it doesn’t make money. Like it is something that I can say I did, like joining a talent competition.
UW: Any words for your fans and supporters?
JM: Thank you very much for all the love and support that I’ve been getting. You guys got me through a lot of hard times during the show but you guys were also there with me during my peak periods and the fun times but regardless, it has been an enjoyable ride.
Also I want to say thank you to my OMG family, the original top 8 as well as the new contenders that joined in that, you know, thanks to them, OMG was really like a family, it didn’t feel like a competition. We worked together and because we all had different talents, we helped each other out. Like if Luminiq had something wrong in their routine, we will tell them. To them, thank you very much for helping me. It has just been amazing.
UrbanWire congratulates Jill-Marie on her win and awaits her debut album!