American Idol controversy

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, one of the long front-runners 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.)

An unsuccessful campaign to bring Daughtry back into the show was started by Daughtry's fans and garnered some attention in the popular press.

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 co-host 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:

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 eight 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 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 leveled 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 Olbermann, both of which showed screenshots from Vote for the Worst pages featuring these images. It was later proven that the more explicit images, depicting sexual acts were not of Barba, but of an unnamed woman with a similar appearance.

* Season 7 contestant Carly Smithson has stirred up controversy due to a prior major label record deal she had with MCA Records. It has been reported that MCA spent over 2 million dollars promoting Smithson's previous album "Ultimate High", which she made under the name Carly Hennessy. The album sold 378 copies, but is now available on iTunes. To further complicate things, Randy Jackson worked for MCA during the same period of time that Smithson was signed. The show made no mention of this deal, despite the fact that the show goes to great lengths to chronicle the personal lives of its contestants (such as the homelessness of Josiah Leming). It has led some, most notably Votefortheworst.com, to believe she has been placed there by the producers, perhaps to avoid having another Sanjaya Malakar, or to ensure a more professional and marketable artists wins.

* David Hernandez, one of the top 12 in season 7, was revealed by VotefortheWorst.com to have worked as a male stripper in Phoenix, AZ. According to the owner of Dick's Cabaret, David's job included a routine featuring full nudity and performing lap dances for male clientèle. Nude pictures of David at work have since been released. No disclosure of his career as a stripper was made by Fox prior to the release.

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