Houston based singer, and Top 42 American Idol 11 contestant, Wendy Taylor, shares her frustration with the Houston Chronicle about hardly being shown on TV during her Idol run:
“I am extremely frustrated about it — either way it went,” she says. “Let’s say I was in the top 24. The rest of America has already sort of picked their favorites. I’m already down 20 points. But I’m not in the top 24, (and) the whole experience was for nothing.
“If you don’t get that moment onstage where you really get to shine. If you don’t get that chance to let America fall in love with you, then you’ve missed out on the greatest opportunity and the whole point of doing the show. I had some of the best performances of my life in these auditions, and they picked probably the worst performance out of all of them to show.”
Wendy feels that if she had been giving the opportunity to make the Top 24, she says, she knows “for a fact” she would have been in the Top 10.
“They put some 15-year-old kids through that are amazing, don’t get me wrong, but they’re not mature enough yet to take on what this business is about to throw at them.”
Wendy suspects there was a very specific reason she didn’t advance. And it had nothing to do with her voice.
“I hate saying this, and I can’t say for sure if it’s true, but I almost know for a fact that if I was 30 pounds lighter, I probably would not have gotten sent home,” she says. “Jennifer flat-out said, ‘It’s not just about being the best singer.’ They couldn’t give me one real reason (why I didn’t make it).”
Wendy is now on a weight loss program and has lost 10 pounds. “If there’s nothing I can do about the fact that this business is superficial, then I’m going to just remove it from the equation so it’s no longer an issue,” she says. Wendy is 29, the Idol age cutoff is 28, so she will no longer be eligible to audition.
Some of Wendy’s remarks sound like sour grapes, but I feel for the contestants who run the gauntlet, get thisclose, yet have no screen time to show for it. That’s got to suck.
Watch Wendy Taylor (on the left) perform “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” with Mathenee Treco and Lauren Gray.
http://youtu.be/FWsaqHJkhW4
