Iam Tongi won season 21 of American Idol Sunday night, with the 18-year-old beating out runners-up Megan Danielle and Colin Stough. Tongi went viral for his cover of James Blunt’s “Monsters” in tribute to his late father, Rodney. “I was not worried about whether you were going to make it through the song, I was worried about whether we were going to make it through the song. Your daddy is very proud,” Lionel Ritchie said after the audition. During the three-hour finale of American Idol, Blunt actually performed a duet of his song with Tongi, making Tongi’s family in the audience very emotional.
Days before the finale, Tongi dropped his original single “I’ll Be Seeing You,” also in honor of his father. Tongi is the first performer from Hawaii to win American Idol.
