She looks wild in her music videos and sexy in her appearance but vivacious Thai singer Tata Young insists she is nothing like the girl in the hit single and music video, El Nin-YO.

Thai singer Tata Young is burning up the Asian charts.
“I am worried people will think I’m really like that (in the music video). I’m just a regular girl, a jeans and T-shirt type girl. How I appear (to people) is just a professional front.

“If you’re an artiste and you don’t have something that makes you stand out, it becomes difficult in this line of work,” said Young, of American and Thai parentage.

She is currently on a South-East Asian promotional tour of her second and latest English album, Temperature Rising, which she plans to also push in Europe next year.

The 25-year-old is one of the biggest selling artistes in her home country and the Asian region at the moment. She started her career at the tender age of 15 and has since sold more than 12 million albums.

During her Kuala Lumpur stop earlier this week, she said she is so used to living a hectic life over the past 10 years that she finds it difficult to simply do nothing.

“Unless I ask for a holiday, that’s different. But if I have to go through days of not doing anything, I get cranky and depressed because I feel like I’m not wanted anymore.”

So does she have time for a personal life?

“I have somebody right now but I don’t know if he’s the one,” said Young cautiously. “It’s hard to have a relationship in this business.”

She finds time to work out at the gym at least three times a week but does not believe in dieting.

She added: “I’m a rice and noodle person. I’m Asian, after all.”

While she is always in the public eye, she feels she’s not the type to be idolised.

“I don’t have what it takes to be an idol, but I’m grateful there are people who look up to me.

“I always tell people to ‘be yourself’. It’s about being natural, being the person that you are.”

Young’s Temperature Rising, distributed by Sony/BMG, is available in local music shops.