Update: Brian Mansfield from USAToday spoke with Chris Golightly’s manager who claims Chris signed a new 2 year recording contract in May 2009. The manager, Lawrence Franklin, sent releases over to 19’s lawyer, and “time kind of ran out for Chris”.
Franklin says he was willing to work with 19. But, if Chris already had a contract, that automatically makes him ineligible for Idol. I don’t see room for negotiation there. Right now, we’ve got two very different stories being told. Who knows what the truth is.
- Read more at Idol Chatter.
Joe’s Place spoke with disqualified Idol contestant, Chris Golightly on the phone again today, and has a bit more detail from Chris on the events that led up to his DQ:
I talked to Chris Golightly again just now. He has been getting calls from media, but is really overwhelmed and doesn’t know what else to say. He has not been on the internet and has no idea how this story has been picked up. Choking back tears, he just said “I just want the position that I earned”.
The Manager that previously had Chris under contract to be one of the members of boy band “dream 5?, doesn’t sound like he knows what he is doing. This guy seemed to really think that Chris was under contract still when he called Idol last week.
He first found out something was amiss when he received an email from the 19 Attorney sent to the top 24 contestants Attorney stating that “If Chris is in a recording contract, he will be unable to party in the prize”. When Chris got word of this, he contacted the Dream 5 manager and asked what was going on, that he was going to get disqualified because of what the manager was stating. Chris told him that his contract was over June of 2009. The manager then started doing some actual digging, and found Chris contract release dated June, 2009.
The manager then send Chris an apology and forwarded a copy of the release to everyone involved. This happened, however, after Idol had informed Chris of his disqualification and brought back Tim Urban.
Then, instead of disqualifying Chris for actually having a contract when he did not, Idol then told Chris that he was being disqualified for being “dishonest” and not revealing a prior contract. Chris states that he did indeed tell the producers on September 3, 2009 (his birthday and when he made it to Hollywood) while they were doing the background interview on him, that he did have a prior contract, but he was released in June and had no current contract.
If this is how it all went down, I feel really bad for Chris, and it’s a big lesson in “keep your paperwork in order”. What a sh*tty break…