American Idol

by Richard Rushfield

  On paper, Ellen answered all their prayers. But chemistry isn’t something you can plot out on paper. There’s a reason it’s called lightning in a bottle. And there were lots of reasons this chemistry experiment failed.

  While in the past, Simon had enjoyed the give and take, the friendly on-air jousting with Paula, there had never been any question as to who had the upper hand. Simon was the star. Period. This new recruit was a star in her own right, completely independent of Idol. Not to mention that despite her just hanging out, nice girl demeanor, Ellen was no slouch in the ego department herself. Privately, she was known as one of the bigger divas in Hollywood, her set rife with horror stories. During the writers’ strike of 2008, Ellen had been the only major talk show host to hire scab writers, a fact that, in her ongoing campaign to paint herself as America’s best pal, had been swept under the rug.

  It remained to be seen how Ellen’s ego would stand up to Simon’s in this, her first season, and his last. For his part, Cowell might have been heading out, but he wanted to walk away in style. For several years past, his dressing quarters had not been in one of the modest rooms where the rest of the cast prepared, but in more spacious quarters, a trailer located in the parking lot right off the stage, where he could get made up and ready for the show at his leisure. For his final season, however, Cowell decided that would not do—not after he laid eyes on the two-story deluxe trailer that Will Smith used while filming. The multiroom mobile home was delivered to the lot, where it was set up with a little patio area out front. However, with a foot out the door, he was to find there were limits to his powers for the first time. When he requested that Idol hire an interior decorator to style his makeup quarters, for perhaps the first time, his request was denied.

  Cowell left Pasadena and headed straight to the Kodak Theatre Hollywood Week set for his first day of work with DeGeneres. The aftermath of the announcement found him distracted and notably cranky, even by his standards. The singers trembled as he brought down the axe an one after another, dashing the hopes of some of the brightest talents who had the misfortune to fall on the wrong side of his mood.

  Within days, press reports emerged claiming that Simon and Ellen were at each other’s throats. “TV Tug of War: It’s Ellen vs. Simon” screamed Hollywood’s Deadline blog. “It was American Idol’s newest judge Ellen DeGeneres’s first day of the ninth season’s taping of the Hollywood segment, and she was excited and nervous, sources tell us. But then that turned to anger. Because, our insiders say, Simon Cowell was an hour and a half late for the taping. And Ellen stewed while she waited.”

  For the rest of the season, reporters studied the pair for any sign of strife. To all appearances, the two behaved professionally to each other, but once the cameras stopped rolling they retreated to their own corners. On-screen, they largely ignored each other, with one rarely responding directly to the other’s comments, hardly making for good TV. Their one moment of real interaction came when Ellen, in a jesting attempt to dispel the strife talk, climbed in Simon’s lap, wrapped her arms around his neck, and began nuzzling his ear. Cowell seemed mortified, and he couldn’t even pretend to play along.

  As for the rest of the panel, in the Simon/Paula/Randy era, each judge had a very clear roles. Mean judge. Nice judge. Tie-breaking judge. Now you had a mean judge and three others, each of whom were neither clearly nice nor mean but somewhere in between, depending on the day. As the semifinals progressed and the judges came front and center, the ratings plummeted.

  The judges struggled to integrate their newest member. On the nights when it was her turn to lead off the panel, Ellen seemed uncertain of which way to turn. A comedian and no music expert, she needed someone to play off, someone to establish the parameters of how a performance went before she felt safe weighing in. The order was shifted, Randy given the permanent first position, and Ellen grew more comfortable. But as the season wore on and her one-liners became familiar, the question of what she added to the panel grew more pronounced.

  Now in her second year, Kara had become noticeably confident and was winning critical praise as the most engaged, musically astute of the judges. “Kara DioGuardi has improved from her first season,” wrote the Idol critic at movieline.com, “now ably diagnosing issues with song choices and artistic intention.” She also received a backhanded compliment from her antagonists at Vote for the Worst, who, comparing her to Ellen’s early performances, wrote, “At least Kara DioGuardi can finally give away the title of Most Contrived Idol Judge.”

  Informed though she might have been, Kara’s role in relation to the others remained unclear. Offscreen, she seemed eager to take Paula’s place by Simon’s side. She whispered constantly to him, played with his hair, leaned against him at every moment, and followed him out on cigarette breaks, making it clear—many thought, to Ellen—that she was Simon’s number one girl. In fact, Kara seemed to be trying to haze Ellen as Paula hazed her. But there were a couple of problems with the strategy. For one thing, rather than enjoying the banter with Kara as he had with Paula, Simon seemed annoyed and looked as if he was trying to shake her off at every opportunity. As for Ellen, getting in good with Simon seemed to be the last thing she cared about. Kara’s gambit fell flat.

  If the contestants in previous years had taken hits, no group had ever been bashed as hard as the contestants of season 9. “The Worst Season Ever?” asked the Fresno Bee, in what would become the critics’ mantra. Individually, the contestants might not have been so much worse than any given singer on any other season, but coming after the theatrics of Adam Lambert and the other talented season 8 contestants, the current season suffered badly in comparison. None of the group was able to top or even match Lambert’s skill at reinventing a song and creating events out of each performance. Halfway through the season, nobody had captured the audience’s imagination, nor become a topic of national conversation. That one person who audiences couldn’t wait to see never emerged.

  Collectively, the group appeared sullen and immature, unable to communicate. Lee DeWyze, the year’s surging front-runner, was often nervous to the point he was barely able to get out a sentence when speaking on camera. Siobhan Magnus, hybrid goth/hippie glassblower from Cape Cod, appeared to be in her own world, barely aware of the spectacle unfolding around her. Even the one potential breakout performer was highly problematic. With her missing teeth and dreadlocks, Crystal Bowersox seemed to cultivate the image of a street musician performing on a subway platform. She was definitely not of the Idol mold, even with her powerful voice. While Crystal’s act was solidly retro, her magnetic charm, which often seemed to shine through despite herself, turned her into the season’s only thing approaching a breakout star. Backstage, however, Crystal seemed to resent the requirements of Idol, and this resentment played itself out in a regular stream of mini-diva fits that provoked huge eye-rolling among the crew. In interviews, she would snap at reporters and mock their questions, and refuse to answer. Halfway through the season, friends shipped Crystal her old mike stand, which she had used in her performances back home, a special contraption fixed up with a glass lamp in the middle, giving it something of a gypsy vibe. When the stagehands brought the stand out for its Idol debut, they noticed a thick layer of dust on it and duly wiped it off. Crystal threw a tantrum, proclaiming the dust had been the residue of her whole career and had been swept away.

  On a more serious note, coming from a very off-the-grid background, Bowersox arrived at the stage a serious health risk. A lifelong sufferer of diabetes, she had been without health insurance for years. Moreover, she didn’t appear to practice a proper diet or treatment regimen for her ailment. Early in the top twelve rounds, Crystal collapsed on the set and had to be rushed to the hospital, where doctors found her dangerously at risk of serious consequences. The medical attention put her on the path to good health at last. “Whatever people say about Idol, we saved that girl’s life. The show literally saved her life,” said one familiar with her condition.

  The inci
dent provoked the season’s one major piece of public drama when Ryan Seacrest reportedly found an exhausted Crystal wandering outside the set on the brink of quitting the show and convinced her to stay. A few days after the story became public, Crystal’s recently eliminated friend Didi Benami reported getting a text reading “Betrayed by Seacrest,” a message that was soon to become a catchphrase among the Idol press corps. But many believe Crystal’s suspicions may have been misplaced. Because the news first appeared on TMZ, a favored spot for on-set leakers, it was speculated that the tidbit had been divulged not by Seacrest but by someone on the production out to milk the one piece of drama that had occurred in the limpid season.

  The question many asked was how—of the tens of thousands who auditioned—how could these really be the best? There were the traditional reasons, of course: luck of the draw, talented performers failing to live up to their potential, others who made it through not rising to theirs. But many on the set had other notions. Once Cowell had decided to leave Idol and bring over X Factor, Idol became his competition. And Simon Cowell, by his own admission, was nothing if not competitive. So here was Idol’s competitor in charge of choosing its talent. It’s impossible to know what was in Cowell’s mind as he reviewed each contestant through the auditions, Hollywood Week, and ultimately as he selected the semifinalists. And indeed, although many worried that his boredom would become paralyzing, Cowell appeared more alert in this final season, more focused and serious than he had been in years. Nevertheless, more than a few members of the production broached the theory that season 9’s poor crop of talent was due to Simon’s not wanting to do his new competitor any favors as he kept his eyes on the future.

  For the first time since its first season, Idol lost a night, garnering lower ratings than a resurgent Kate Gosselin–fueled Dancing with the Stars. And amidst all this, the one sturdy, unsinkable ship in the American Idol fleet even began springing leaks. Ryan Seacrest, Mr. Smooth, the man who doesn’t know the meaning of the word awkward, was . . . awkward. On one occasion, pushing his sparring partner Cowell, Seacrest approached the judges’ desk and literally got in Simon’s face, an inch away from it. Cowell, rather than engaging, pulled back and turned away, creating a bizarrely off-kilter moment. On another night, when Seacrest asked contestant Didi Benami a question about the deceased friend she had just discussed in a video package, Benami suddenly clammed up and murmured that she didn’t wish to talk about it, leaving Ryan looking like a ghoul prodding at a tragedy.

  The truth was that as host, Seacrest’s job was far more complex than it seemed. Derided as a pretty face and reader of cue cards, Seacrest was actually responsible for the most critical element of the live show: its pacing. It’s the host who picks up the tempo when it lags, changes the subject, brings up nagging questions, or slows things down to stretch out the tension when that’s called for. Watching Seacrest in the early years when his skills were still a work in progress, you can see how the episodes often lurched forward in fits and starts. But Seacrest grew into the role and became the show’s true host, keeping the trains—the commercial breaks—running on time, squeezing a few intelligible words out of the often verbally challenged contestants, and making sure he milked every spot of drama.

  Nevertheless, while a skilled host can turn lemons into lemonade, he can’t make lemonade out of roadkill. Between the judges not jelling and the singers not connecting, Ryan failed to pick up the tempo. Whatever that alchemy had been, the lightning that had bound Idol’s inner circle together and made it the most popular television show on earth was gone.

  Season 10 would offer a chance to invent the show anew. As the producers pointed out, Idol was a hit in dozens of countries without Simon Cowell. The star of German Idol, Dieter Bohlen, was, if anything, an even bigger star there than Cowell was here. Idol had defied longer odds before and there were still tens of millions of fans who would be tuning in to see what they came up with, ready to give them every benefit of the doubt. It would be something different without Cowell, but it would be something.

  Notable at the taping of almost every episode in season 9 was a man who had been only sporadically seen on the set since the early years, American Idol’s creator, Simon Fuller. He sat quietly in the last row of the theater, went in and out through a rear staircase, and eschewed any public acknowledgment. While every newspaper, TV news show, and entertainment site on earth puzzled over the fate of Idol, the man who had created it all sat quietly watching each week, unnoticed by reporters sitting a few feet away.

  Fuller looked over how far things had come since his hospital revelation nearly a decade and a half earlier. The idea of giving the public the opportunity to create stars was more than a reality: it had become, it seemed, a dying entertainment industry’s last hope. In nine years, the products of his empire had sold millions of records, had conquered Broadway, and won an Oscar. One hundred graduates of American Idol were making lives in music, whether in national stadium tours or at their local bars, where the American Idol name remained a sure draw.

  But for Fuller, there was already the next mountain to climb. In the ninth season of Idol, he had begun perhaps the most ambitious project ever constructed on the Internet. Over the years working with Paul Hardcastle, with the Spice Girls, not to mention with so many Idols in America, the United Kingdom, and around the world, he had become fascinated with that almost mystical transformation from private person to star. For this very private man himself, that moment had become the subject of his thoughts and reflections, when one life suddenly belongs to something bigger than itself, when it belongs to the people.

  Fuller created a house in Beverly Hills where the world would be able to watch this transformation take place, play out as it might over weeks or years; after all he’d been through, he was in no rush. The If I Can Dream house was populated with five young aspiring stars, and built with cameras in every nook and cranny, feeding into a Web site that was an amazing technological achievement, where visitors could control their perspective like nothing ever created and where a 24/7 control room monitored and catalogued full-length episodes. Over the next few years, at least one of these young people would become a star, it was hoped, and every moment of that journey would have been captured forever. But just as important, by the very sharing of their process, they would bring the public into their rise, make them partners in their celebrity as they watched them eat dinner, chatted with them on Twitter, became their friends on Facebook. And then, when they made it, their rise would, from the first, be the property of the fans.

  The man who had made so many stars was looking for ever newer ways to put that power back in the hands of the people.

  In his final days on Idol, Cowell seemed notably wistful. On a few occasions he even did the unthinkable and stayed in the theater during commercial breaks to chat with the crowd and sign autographs.

  When the finale came, it was a celebration of the Simon era, with the predictable tribute reels and a serenade by a chorus of former Idol stars. The emotional high point of the night, however, was not Simon’s good-bye speech but a surprise appearance to wish him farewell. Paula Abdul almost didn’t go through with her tribute, but when she stepped out on the Nokia stage, the outpouring was incomparable to anything the show had seen. The crowd rose to their feet and stayed on their feet throughout her address—nary a dry eye in the house—as a meandering, tongue-tied, overflowing-with-emotion Paula spoke to the Idol faithful once more. To the six thousand people in the room, what she had meant to them would always be a special memory. When she was done, at the commercial break, Simon put his arm around her and, ignoring the show and the other judges, went out for a cigarette break with his old friend. They had come far together, and some speculated that their journey together might continue at the other end of Fox’s lineup when X Factor debuted. But for now, it was a moment to go out in triumph.

  Cowell looked out over the Idol crowd one last time. “It felt very weird,” he says, remembering the moment. “It’s th
e connection with the audience more than anything else. It’s so easy when you get caught up in negotiations that you forget about the people who made it happen, and that’s the people who watch the shows. So when you’re standing there in front of five thousand, six thousand people and you feel this warmth and emotion, that’s when I felt more emotional than I ever thought I would feel. Which is just the fact that we’ve had this amazing run, and that’s what was all going through my mind. And Randy and Ryan, all those things. But still believing—always believing—that it’s a great show.”

  Season 9 ended with what was widely considered a lackluster verdict: Quiet, introverted, often nervous Chicago paint salesman Lee DeWyze continued the rocker boys’ dynasty. That summer, the tour became the lowest attended yet. In a miserable summer for the touring industry in general, the promoters were forced to cancel shows for the first time. But for the twelve, even the abbreviated tour remained a dream that a year before they would have never believed possible.

  Late in July, the Idol team would still be debating how to replace Simon Cowell and the fate of the judges’ panel. Meanwhile, in Nashville, Tennessee, sixteen thousand people stood in line before dawn to audition to be the next American Idol. It was the second-highest turnout in Idol history, and as the tour went on for the show supposedly on its last legs, the numbers stayed in the stratosphere.

  For tens of thousands, the Idol dream still meant everything. And for a show looking to renew itself, each one of those tens of thousands was a new story, a new fairy tale ready to be told.