"Rock Star: INXS" Singer Says He's Homeless and Bandless

Remember J.D. Fortune, the guy from Canada who became the new singer for INXS after winning the reality show Rock Star: INXS? Apparently winning the right to front the Aussie band wasn't all it was cracked up to be: according to Canada's The Star, Fortune is now homeless. After INXS finished their long tour a little over a year ago, Fortune says the band casually just dropped him from their roster. "I was in an airport in Hong Kong and literally got handshakes of 'Thank you very much,' " Fortune said, "I found myself really alone because I had traveled with these guys for 23 months. Some of the audiences we played for were upwards of 80,000 people." And that's how his INXS career ended, stranded in a Hong Kong airport.

Fortune's dismissal wasn't without justification, however: The singer reportedly became a heavy cocaine user while he was in INXS. "It got as bad as it needed to be for me to numb out the fact that this was going to come to a screeching halt," Fortune said. Given that the band's original singer, Michael Hutchence, had cocaine in his system when he died under dubious circumstances in 1997, it seems likely INXS didn't want to follow down that drug-fueled path again with their new lead singer.

Thus, Fortune is homeless, off drugs and living in his pick-up truck while he scrounges together enough money to finish working on his solo album, The Death of a Motivational Speaker. Even though Duff McKagan told Rock Daily recently that Velvet Revolver is on the verge of revealing their new singer, maybe it's not too late to get Fortune an audition. And attention American Idol season seven cast-off Michael Johns: this could be the job you've been looking for.

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