American Idol controversies

American Idol has generated controversy over the years in numerous areas. Among them:

Voting controversies

The first major voting controversy occurred with the top 4 of season one when Tamyra Gray, the long front-runner of the competition, was voted off before the struggling contestant Nikki McKibbin. This was just a week after Simon Cowell had called Tamyra's rendition of "A House is Not a Home," one of the best performances on television he had ever seen in his life. All of the three judges were outraged and showed disapproval of the results. Out of 24 million votes recorded following the Season 2 finale, Ruben Studdard finished just 130,000 votes ahead of Clay Aiken, and there remains controversy over the accuracy of the reported results. There was much discussion in the communication industry about the phone system being overloaded, and that potentially more than 230 million calls were dropped just by AT&T and SBC (over 30% of the market), making the results statistically invalid. Since then the voting methods have been modified in an attempt to avoid this problem. In an interview prior to the start of the fifth season, executive producer Nigel Lythgoe revealed for the first time that Aiken had led the fan voting from the wild card week onward until the finale.

During Season 5, there was additional controversy the week Chris Daughtry was voted off. Some voters claimed that phone calls dialed for Daughtry during the first few minutes of voting were misrouted to Katharine McPhee's lines, when they heard her recorded message thanking them for voting. Other voters claimed similar problems voting for other contestants, in some cases resulting in votes going to Daughtry that were intended for another contestant, Elliott Yamin. It is not clear whether votes were actually tabulated for the wrong contestant, or if the "Thank you for voting for me" messages that callers heard were incorrectly assigned. (If the recordings were incorrectly assigned, votes would have been counted for the correct contestant despite the caller hearing the wrong contestant's "thank you" message.) Vote splitting among the three males competing against one female also contributed to the early elimination of Chris Daughtry.

A campaign to bring Daughtry back into the show was started by Daughtry's fans and garnered some attention in the popular press. Internet petitions in support of the cause were started and collected thousands of signatures. Ultimately, the campaign failed to gain support of the show or its producers, and Daughtry was not returned to the competition.

Career control

American Idol has also come under fire for maintaining what some claim to be total control of the careers of the any of the contestants that sign with their management company, 19 Management. Former cohost Brian Dunkleman referred to the show as "owning" the contestants, noting that signees sign contracts to record only with companies owned by the show's producers and to allow related agencies to manage their careers. It should be noted that contestants are advised of the conditions and requirements for taking part in the contest and that signing the contract is optional but a requirement if they want to participate in the competition. Even knowing the restrictions, tens of thousands of contestants sign the contract anyway, as AI provides most of them an opportunity for success and visibility not otherwise available.

National Geographic Channel investigator and journalist Eric Olsen wrote:

'Branding' is what Fuller is all about. He redefines the role of manager for the 21st century. He treats pop acts as brands to be exploited over different media rather than human performers who make money selling records and playing concerts. He is a genius—he makes everyone else look like complete amateurs.

In his article, Olsen lauds Fuller for his ingenuity while at the same time berates him for the contract his contestants must sign. In essence, the agreement stipulates that the finalists are "forever and throughout the universe" properties of 19 Management.

Idol rules

• During the course of Season 2, Ruben Studdard became known for wearing 205 Flava jerseys representing his area code. Shortly after the end of the contest Studdard sued 205 Flava, Inc for two million dollars for using his image for promotional purposes. Flava responded by alleging that Studdard had accepted over $10,000 in return for wearing 205 shirts, and produced 8 cashed checks to validate their claim. The allegations, if true, were a clear violation of the American Idol rules. The lawsuit was later settled out of court.

Contestants

• Jim Verraros was the first and so far only openly gay contestant on the show. He was told by Fox TV to remove all gay comments from his online journal. Verraros later explained, "It wasn't because I was gay. It was because they thought I was trying to gain more votes and have that little extra edge."

• Corey Clark was disqualified when the producers found out that he lied about his criminal history. Later, he claimed to have had an affair with Paula Abdul. An investigation by external counsel later cleared Abdul of all charges levied by Clark.

• Semi-finalist Frenchie Davis was removed from the competition when topless photos of her surfaced on an adult website purportedly featuring underage content.

• Terrell and Derrell Brittenum were twins who were featured prominently on the auditions and successfully made it past the Hollywood rounds in season 5 but were subsequently arrested for identity theft and disqualified.

• The website Vote For the Worst featured salacious pictures of Season 6 contestant Antonella Barba. These pictures have received mainstream attention including a full segment concerning the controversy on the February 26, 2007 edition of FOX News' The O'Reilly Factor and also on MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olberman, both of which showed screenshots from Vote for the Worst pages featuring these images.

Other controveries

Virginia Tech massacre

On Tuesday, April 17th, 2007, the day after the Virginia Tech massacre, in which Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 students and professors before killing himself, while contestant Chris Richardson and Ryan Seacrest were discussing the shooting after Chris' critique, Simon Cowell apparently appeared to be rolling his eyes at the tragedy, when he was actually speaking to Paula Abdul and did not hear what Chris had said. On the results show, Cowell stated: "I may not be the nicest person in the world, but I would never, ever, ever, disrespect those families or those victims, and I felt it was important to set the record straight." To clear Cowell's name, a video was shown on the result show which proved his innocence.

External links

• American Idol
• Federal Trade Commission's American Idol case
• American Idol Outrage: Your Vote Doesn't Count
• Slaves of Celebrity
• Vote for the Worst