- Did she think she was going home? “I didn’t. I really thought I was going to be okay this week. I thought I did my best job on the song this week; I thought I hit all the notes. It’s the most vocally challenging song I did this year so far. When I was done, I thought Simon was going to feed off of Paula and say he enjoyed it…I was a little upset to go. I thought I had at least another week in me.”
- What it’s like in the Bottom 3, “It’s been tough being in the bottom three, but I got a little tougher each time and finally learned how to control the emotions coming from the whole situation. This last time, it was definitely nerve-wracking, because none of us knew what was going on, how they were separating the groups, and sending us to different sides of the stage. It was definitely a shock for me to go home. I wish I wouldn’t have left so soon ‘ I wanted to make top five ‘ but I am happy Brooke’s still in the competition because she’s one of my best friends.”
- How did her singout come about? “Yeah, it was kind of my last time on the stage. I just wanted to go over to Simon and let him know I wasn’t scared of him. I had enough confidence to go and sit right in front of him…When it was getting close to Ryan announcing the results, I said, ”Can we do what we want on stage? Because I’m going to sit on Simon’s lap and sing.” [Debbie, the stage manager] said, ‘You are?’ and I said, ‘Yes, I am.'”
More After the Jump…
- On Simon giving her a hard time, “I believe that he was just being skeptical, because I started out kind of weak. I was struggling the first three weeks, being sick, and recovery took awhile. I think I outlasted what he thought because I got stronger towards the end, and I was getting in the comfort zone of the songs I was used to and had been doing for a while. So I was starting to come out of my shell and sing the songs I felt comfortable with, and he saw that a couple times. And unfortunately, it ended when I had to leave, but I thought my performance was pretty strong this past week. I’m happy I went out on that note.”
- Was singing “God Bless America” a strategic move? “It wasn’t, like, a huge thought process for me. The year I was born, [the song] came out again, and my dad was in Vietnam and he absolutely loved that song … and I love that song. I sang it for a long time, and it just kind of hit me when I saw that, and my sister called me and said, You should do ‘God Bless the U.S.A.’ It was done in that year. I was already thinking about it, and I was like, That’s the one.’ So we kind of just stuck with that one. It was kind of an instant ‘yes’ in my mind.”
- About her fiance’s proposal, “It’s kind of hard to go out without bodyguards, so he came over and hung out at the apartment. We looked around for a place to talk, but everywhere we went there were people. He proposed to me (March 15) in the sauna, and he actually proposed to me (again) last night on live television. It was really cool. He re-enacted the proposal and actually got down on one knee, because the first time he didn’t. He owed it to me (laughs)”
- About singing “Eight Days a Week”, “Well, you know, I kind of have mixed feelings on it. A lot of people actually liked it. A lot of people on the stage and in the band loved the version. I thought it was kind of cool and deserved a little bit more praise, because I did make it my own. I made sure to add my own sound to it and stuff and do my own stuff with my voice in the song, but I know the judges have a lot of influence on the viewers. So it would have been different if [Simon] would have said, “That was amazing. I love how you changed it up.” It would have been a totally different story, and America would have agreed, you know what I mean? Because even me being a viewer now, it’s kind of like, I used to listen to what they would say about Carrie Underwood and stuff, and it does affect the way you think about it. So I try to have a little bit more of an open mind, and now I am not listening. I’ve been on the show and I’m like, ‘I know who’s good.'”
- On working with Dolly Parton and Mariah Carey, “I definitely learned a lot. They are the sweetest people. I mean, they’re huge stars, and for them to remain sweet and caring and supportive of everything we were doing ‘ that’s I how I want to be if I become a famous singer. I want to be able to carry that and still be the genuine and humble girl. I don’t want to come across as being a diva or something like that. [Laughs.] But they both were just so nice. And they gave you advice, and they both had wonderful things to say to me, and I took that to heart and I will never forget it. That meant a lot to me to hear that from them.”
- What she would have sung for Andrew Lloyd Webber next week, “I was going to do ‘Don’t Cry for Me Argentina.’ Oh well. It happened for a reason.”
Sources: Entertainment Weekly, MTV, USA Today
