American Idol

by Richard Rushfield

  “By the time we got to top twelve,” Ace Young recalls, “there was already scandal press, like ‘Is Ace sleeping with Paula?’ or there was a three-page spread in Star magazine that says, ‘My son’s not gay,’ and it’s all about me. My dad literally answered the phone and said to the reporter, ‘Sorry, my son’s not gay.’ Click. They made it, like, this epic thing like he yelled it on the phone. We were the Twilight of the time.”

  A big issue for those locked inside the bubble is how to manage contact with the people on the other side. Naturally, when your friend or family member is on the biggest show in the world, you want to share that moment with them, be a part of the excitement, support them, encourage them, and most of all, offer advice—lots and lots and lots of advice, from suggestions about song arrangements to comebacks to use against Simon.

  “Dealing with family and friends on the outside is a massive stress on everyone on the show, and it’s something I struggled with,” says Brooke White. “People start acting really weird when you’re on the show. You’re very busy, and you get maybe five minutes a day to talk to anyone. That’s hard for a lot of people in your life. You talk about a song and people question it when I’d feel excited, and it deflates you. I got to a point where I was very careful about who I would talk to about what. Nobody understands what you’re going through, and it’s not their fault. They have the best intentions, and they think that they’re helping. They can’t fathom what it feels like to be in this situation, which, you know, is life.”

  Idol accommodations have varied from season to season. During years when their home is used in on-screen segments, they have been put up in lavish mansions in the L.A. hills. Other years, the contestants have lived in a nondescript apartment building in Hollywood. Non–cast members are strictly prohibited from visiting the accommodations, a rule that has been more rigorously enforced in some seasons than others.

  Ace Young tells of life in the dorms during season 5: “You’re not allowed to hang with your family. You have a curfew. Chris and I were grown-ass men and we had an eleven o’clock curfew, and we couldn’t have family in the room with us. It was weird. And it made sense from their standpoint that nobody gets hurt in their facility but it didn’t make sense in the family side of American Idol, so that made it hard. But it made all of us come together even closer because if I’m having an argument with my girlfriend, or Chris is in an argument with his wife, or Elliott’s having something going on with his family or his girlfriend, we only have each other to talk to about it. We’re on the phone with that person but we can’t really resolve it.”

  Nothing ultimately affects a contestant’s progress more than the dreaded song choice question. Each week, with only days or hours to do it, the contestants must choose a song from within a week’s theme that is beloved by both the audience and the judges—God help you in the eyes of Mr. Cowell if you pick an unfamiliar ditty—and that you can make your own. Contestants are expected to define themselves as artists without being “self-indulgent.” It is a dilemma that could drive an Idol to madness.

  Although ultimately the choice of what an Idol sings and how he sings it is made by the contestant, there’s an array of hoops to jump through before that choice is made. First of all is the question of song clearance. Each week the contestants are given a list, sometimes a very short list, of songs that Idol has acquired the rights to perform. If the contestants want a song that’s not on the list, the show will often try to acquire the rights, but there’s no guarantee. Some artists will refuse to license their songs to Idol, not wanting to see them turned into fodder for a “game show,” although this happens far less than it did in the early years. Other times, the price will simply be too high. Often with the clock ticking toward showtime, this decision can come down to the wire.

  Ideally, after each Wednesday’s elimination, the contestants will choose a song the next day. They’ll spend Friday working with the vocal coach and music director, coming up with an arrangement. Over the weekend, they rehearse with the band while the producers review their work. Monday, they hit the studio to record the versions for iTunes release. That’s when they also work out the blocking and choreography onstage. Tuesday it’s showtime.

  Ace Young recalls of the process, “The producers have to okay the song, so they’ll come into the room when you’re working with the vocal coach and they listen to it. But I remember when I sang ‘Butterflies,’ they asked me not to. Everything was leaning rock, I was getting ready to sing ‘Butterflies,’ and they literally came in and said, ‘I don’t think it’s a good song, I don’t know this song, I don’t think it’s a good song.’ And I said, ‘Listen, I’ve sung this when I’m the only white dude in the room for two and a half years and I promise, this is a good song. It works very well for me.’ So I actually had to tell them I’m not going to sing another song. And they said, ‘That’s your decision, so if you’re sitting out there and you’ve got nobody supporting you on it, then that’s your decision.’ And I said, ‘That’s fine.’ Turned out that it was my second-best song performed on the show. I knew it—I didn’t have to think about the words. When I was done with that Randy jumped on and went, ‘Dude, you could sing songs in your falsetto all day long.’ ”

  Negotiating with the band over the arrangements was also often a delicate dance. Brooke White recalls, “It was 1970s week, and I knew my stuff. I’d even practiced ‘You’re So Vain’ before the show, hoping I might get to sing it, and initially I wanted to play the guitar. [Music director] Rickey Minor said, ‘You’re lovely, but you’re not quite a good enough guitar player to play on the show.’ He was very kind about it, but I was devastated. I felt like this was an important element for me. I went home, and I told my husband, and he told me to practice and see how I felt tomorrow.

  “I was seriously doubting myself, and I prayed, looking for an answer. And I decided to play it. I adjusted some things, and I felt like I could play it pretty well. I told Rickey that I appreciated his feedback, but that I wanted to play, and he was very cool about it. We compromised—I told him I’d play during the chorus and the first verse, and it worked out beautifully. That was the first night the judges really got it. Simon insisted I was singing it about him, and I knew he was going to say that. But it was a moment where I was, like, ‘You need to trust yourself.’ You learn that there are so many voices, and you can’t hear your own, and you have to learn to get into a place where you can hear it.”

  The schedule runs the Idols ragged, so sickness is a constant threat that most succumb to at some point. Flu, bronchitis, mono? The show must go on. Megan Joy remembers when her turn came to fall ill, “I got really sick. For dress rehearsal, an hour before the show I couldn’t sing a single note. I started sobbing and they pretty much carried me offstage. That’s how weak I was. In that hour, I didn’t practice. I didn’t do what everyone else did. I sat in a dark room with IVs in me and tried not to cry. I was lying down as the makeup people were putting on my makeup, like passing out while they were doing it all. It was really intense. I was so sick. I was trying to find the humor in it. I was, like, I’m going to be the first person to pass out on the Idol stage. That’s going to be hilarious. That’s just what I kept thinking. I’m, like, I’m probably just going to drop on the stage. So I walked out there and once again, magic. I guess the adrenaline just canceled everything out and pushed me through it, because it was my best night.”

  Standing alone onstage before an audience of tens of millions with your entire future hanging in the balance is the world’s most terrifying experience. As is being ripped to shreds by Idol’s expert panel. “I think it’s everyone’s worst nightmare, that you look like a fool in front of thirty million people,” said season 8’s Anoop Desai. “That’s a nightmare for everyone. It’s a combination of pressure, criticism, how we felt about our own performance, whether we’re happy or disappointed in ourselves. It all comes down to that one moment.”

  Ace Young fell under the lash. “I sang Daniel Bedingfiel
d’s song ‘If You’re Not the One’ and I remember the judges just ripped me. They just cut me up. And I remember I sat there and I just didn’t care. Before it even happened, before the song started. And also, I didn’t pick the song. I had to sing it because it was on a list of six songs that were cleared. And I was just going, ‘Well, all right, this is interesting.’ And it was a weird time for me, because it was the first time they were all mean and I was so out of it that day because my mind was elsewhere. It was like kicking a dog when it’s down. Simon was mean to me and it didn’t affect me because I didn’t even care. My brain wasn’t about that. I wanted to get off the stage and deal with my stuff. The problem with a show like that is you have too much time to think about everything so you overprocess everything instead of just remembering to go out, have fun, sing the damn song, and have fun with it.”

  After each performance, an odd dynamic reigns in the holding room backstage, as some want to celebrate their triumphs and others struggle not to fall apart. “People come backstage after getting abused by the judges and it’s scary, and then some people are on a high,” said Brooke White. “You want to be very careful when you’re back there. I would try to be calm and not say much, even if I was feeling amazing. Some people would get chewed up—they were just awful to Kristy [Lee Cook] all the time, and she took it like a champ. We’d all hug and give reassurance. You always knew you weren’t alone. Most people got picked on.”

  For every Idol contestant there comes that moment when they realize their lives have changed forever. And it usually comes once they step out of the Idol bubble. The contestants know they’re at the center of something big, but it’s hard to truly grasp the phenomenon.

  Idol contestants are different from actors or other musicians. The audience has met them in their homes, seen them progress, watched them celebrate and mourn. Joining them from the first steps of their journey, the public feels that they know the real them, and that they are responsible for having made them. Unlike with movie stars, the public feels that they own them, and that sense of ownership has led to some scary moments.

  RJ Helton recalls the experience of leaving the show and going home, where he first got a glimpse of what he was a part of. “I was at the Mall of Georgia by myself shopping. I walked into a clothing store and this huge trail of people were behind me and I had to have mall security called and escort me back to my car. It was pretty weird. That type of stuff was strange to me, surreal actually. I didn’t understand the big deal. I was just a very normal, regular person from a very small town. It was kind of scary at times.”

  Nikki McKibbin remembers a similar moment, also at a mall. “It’s scary to some degree. It’s awesome, but I remember coming back home and since Kelly and I lived so close to each other, I was in a mall here when Kelly was. I remember getting mobbed when I walked in. I didn’t go with Kelly but there were people running up to me asking if we were all there and I was, like, ‘What are you talking about?’ ‘At the mall, are you guys all here?’ ‘No, it’s just me.’ Then they’d get mad. ‘Why are you lying? Kelly’s just right over there.’ I walk over and poor Kelly is face to the counter, hat on her head. I walk up, and you get to know the sound of someone else’s voice even when they’re messing with you, and so I walked up to her and screamed, ‘Oh, my gosh! Kelly Clarkson!’ She knew immediately. She turned around and she looked at me like, ‘Help.’ We were both standing there, like, ‘Holy shit, what’s going on?’ ”

  On the tour, if anything, the fans become more voracious. Ace Young tells, “We had people literally try to run up onstage and try to give us their address, or try to get into our dressing rooms and get into our stuff. On numerous occasions we would walk inside the tour bus and there’d be fans on our bus. They snuck in, and they’re going through our stuff. And we can’t go and tell them they have to leave. We’d walk off and tell security, because if you physically grab their hand and pull them off the bus they could sue you, so on numerous occasions we had people sneak in and go through our stuff. I remember Chris and I went shopping. We had to go to the mall to grab outfits for the next week. We were in a store looking at jeans and we had two to three thousand teenagers outside. We said our hellos, and walked through it.”

  Living inside the bubble is a lot to contend with, but it eventually comes to an end with elimination. Early in the season, the eliminations are celebrated with a good-bye dinner, where all the contestants’ families are invited to say farewell to the departing singer. The tradition holds that they go around the table and each contestant tells the eliminee how much they mean to them.

  But first, they have to face that moment onstage, in front of the cameras—alone.

  Melinda Doolittle remembered, “I hated Wednesday nights so much. They were hard either way. If you stayed you were crying so hard for the people who left and then if they said your time was up you were, like, ‘Okay, here we go. What do I do now?’ You can’t really celebrate because you’re next to someone who’s headed home.”

  “You feel like you’re being pushed off the edge of a cliff,” said Brooke White. “You just do the best you can and it’s very solemn. It becomes very solemn toward that stage of the competition. When it was my day, I just had a gut feeling. I called Kristy Lee and told her I thought I was going to go home, and she said, ‘No, you’re crazy.’ That whole day, though, I started packing. I knew it was getting close. You have to be ready to go. I was packed, and I just remember standing there and emotionally preparing to sing. When it was time to go, I felt a deep, deep sadness hit me. Just devastated. It’s not good enough anymore. You want to go farther. Top five was my ultimate goal. Five out of 107,000 people. I looked at everybody onstage, though, and I was sad to leave. I was sad that I would not see the American Idol family anymore. I loved those people, and that was a part of me I knew was gone. I told them I couldn’t sing, and finally I took the microphone and I remember being just so, so sad. Saying thank you. As soon as I was done, I turned around and walked away and sobbed. Cameras were in my face, and I didn’t think I was going to be able to stop crying.”

  Alexis Grace recalls, “Getting eliminated was one of the top ten worst feelings of all time. I might be alone in feeling that horrible, but it was so awful. I think that I should’ve still been there. Not in a cocky way, but that’s how I felt. I felt like I needed more time there—it was cut so short. I got through it, though. I was fine once I got home, but it was really hard to keep watching the show. I’d wish I was there performing. It was, again, like a breakup! You’re so in love, and you get dumped, and then plastered everywhere is them, out with someone else. That’s what it feels like. It’s horrible. As much as I wanted to support the other contestants, it was so hard. Eventually it’s fine, and luckily I got a radio show to distract me.”

  As tough as it is to leave, by the time the end comes, many are ready for it. After the long journey, so many contestants are exhausted, drained of the will to fight on, and just wanting to go home, to see their families and sleep in their own beds. Matt Giraud remembers his number finally coming up in much rosier terms: “It was actually really exciting to go out after and meet everyone. See the people who supported you and meet the fans and do press. It was all fun. It was a little bit lonely because you’re separated from your people who you’ve been with for so long. And you’re sitting in your New York hotel room by yourself just thinking about what just happened to your life. But I liked it. I was ready to go home. I couldn’t wait to get home, I really couldn’t. I’m best friends with the mayor, so they had a big welcoming party for me. I told them I didn’t really want all that. I was kind of nervous about it. There were news cameras and kids waiting for pictures. It was insane, it was an emotional moment. It was almost like you get a hero’s welcome. They make it seem like you saved a hundred people from dying or something. I kind of take it a little more lightly. I was on a reality show. But they love you for that. They love you for putting Kalamazoo on the map. They took me home in a limo, and my room was decora
ted all crazy. It said, ‘Welcome home, Matt,’ and there were balloons. It was really cool. And your friends were so proud to have you home. It’s just a cool moment. Everyone just looks at you differently. They look at you like a star now.”

  Chapter 16

  TWILIGHT OF THE VALKYRIES

  When twenty-one-year-old Kyle Ensley, a junior at Oklahoma State University, auditioned in white oxford, red tie, and thick glasses—presenting himself as the image of a hard-working computer nerd running for student council—few could have imagined that his candidacy for American Idol would tear the show apart. Yet it’s on such stones that empires stumble.

  It was the year after Sanjaya, and the ponyhawk’s shadow loomed over Idol’s annual postmortems. The team agreed that the year before had become cluttered with sideshows and distractions. So, as each season reacts to the excesses of the previous, Idol execs agreed to retrench. Lythgoe recalls, “I said, ‘Let’s not do any gimmicks this year. Let’s just go for talent. We can bring gimmicks back later on. This year, just talent.’ So we all agreed to not have a Sanjaya again.”

  Then in walked Kyle. He didn’t have a terrible voice. He had just enough of one to make it through the auditions, through Hollywood Week, and to the green mile, where, at last, a decision had to be made. Lythgoe recalls that he was “one of those where you could see people voting for him and other people going, ‘How can this person be on American Idol?’ I said, ‘Look, please, don’t take this guy.’ Randy and Paula didn’t want him. Nor did Cecile or Ken. But when it came to Cowell, he wanted him. I said, ‘You’re outvoted.’ He said, ‘I don’t care. I want a character on the show. I want someone I can pick on.’ ”