Ted Williams, Once-Homeless Man With Smooth Voice, Is Back on the Airwaves

The once-homeless man whose silky voice turned him into an Internet sensation five years ago is back on the air—at the same Ohio radio station where he started a broadcasting career derailed by drug and alcohol addiction.

Ted Williams holds a sign advertising his smooth radio voice near a highway ramp in Columbus, Ohio, on December 2010. Five years after Williams' silky voice won him Internet fame, he’s on the air again at the same Ohio radio station where he began his career before addiction pushed him to the streets. The Columbus Dispatch reports the new weekday radio program on WVKO-AM is the first steady employment Williams has had since 1993. AP Photo/Columbus Dispatch, Doral Chenoweth III

COLUMBUS, Ohio—The once-homeless man whose silky voice turned him into an Internet sensation five years ago is back on the air—at the same Ohio radio station where he started a broadcasting career derailed by drug and alcohol addiction.

Ted Williams recently returned to the airwaves with a weekday program on WKVO-AM, The Columbus Dispatch reported. Williams, 58, got his start at the station in the 1980s.

The new show is Williams’ first steady employment since 1993 and comes five years after The Dispatch featured the former panhandler’s smooth radio voice in an online video.

The video brought Williams instant fame but meant his personal struggles played out in public, including Dr. Phil appearances and family altercations that made the tabloids.

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