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American Idol 9: Two Who Missed the Semi-Finals Shoot for Other Success – News on Chris Golightly and Angela Martinby David Bloomberg -- 02/23/2010
View Printable version of this article In the past, we’ve seen that contestants who make it to the American Idol finals but don’t win can definitely still make careers out of their publicity. Indeed, one such finalist will be appearing on Thursday’s show – fourth-place Alison Iraheta will sing her new song, “Scars” But now two contestants are trying to show that you don’t even have to make it to the semi-finals to take a shot at an entertainment career, as there have been recent announcements about Chris Golightly and Angela Martin. 
Chris, of course, was accepted into the top 24 semi-finalists and then dumped by producers (to be replaced by Tim Urban) because they said he failed to tell them about a previous recording contract. According to a story in yesterday’s Los Angeles Times, Chris is hitting the media trail in a big way to tell his side of the story. And he wants to tell all of his story, in the form of a new autobiography he would call Orphan. While the title would be appropriate to how I’m sure Chris feels he’s been treated by Idol, it actually refers to his childhood – as you may recall from his appearance on the earlier audition and Hollywood rounds, has been in foster care for much of his young life due to being in an abusive home. According to a friend of Chris’, he was actually approached by “several writers” after his audition aired, but he had to turn them down due to contractual obligations with Idol. Guess what? That no longer applies! A question I have, though, is whether those writers were only interested in Chris because they figured he would make it on Idol. If so, now that the publicity machine is gone, they might not be interested in him anymore. Still, Chris’ friend did write some interesting thoughts about what makes Chris’ life compelling, including statements like this, about how he dealt with being in other abusive situations: Blessed with a wonderful gift, the only escape Chris had was his voice. And Chris sang. He sang through pain, he sang through tears, he sang through the tragic existence that had become his life. Chris sang so beautifully that he often moved his torturers to compassion. And most importantly, Chris’ singing helped uplift and motivate other orphans to survive their own personal nightmares.And of course, Chris isn’t going to ignore the Idol situation, as the book proposal says it will deal with that by providing “copies of the official documents that prove Chris should not have been disqualified from 'American Idol.'” The book sounds interesting and emotional, but I’m not sure I like the idea that he thinks documents alone will “prove” he shouldn’t have been disqualified. As I noted in discussing his ouster, what we really have here is a disagreement over Chris’ veracity. Did he tell producers about his prior deal or not? Unless the documents spell out that past deal (which I don’t think they will, because if he had written proof I don’t think he’d have been booted), they will not really help his cause in that regard. 
So, can he get somebody to publish this autobiography? The Times notes that Taylor Hicks However, another rejected contestant is getting big publicity. Angela Martin tried three times to get on Idol but had insurmountable problems getting to the semi-finals (her father was murdered prior to Hollywood week the first time; she was stuck in jail due to unpaid tickets and a lack of money the second time; and she was rejected by the judges in a major surprise this most recent third time). However, two of the Idol judges have come together to give her a push into the music business. Last week, newest judge Ellen DeGeneres had Angela as a guest on her daytime talk show in order to give her some great news – Kara DioGuardi will be writing and producing a song for her! This doesn’t mean Angela has a record deal or a label or anything like that yet, but with these two media powerhouses (well, one media powerhouse and Kara) behind her, along with Angela’s story, I expect she will at least get some sort of record deal and put out a single or two. Whether she can make it past that will in part depend on whether Ellen and others continue to push her. We’ll definitely have to keep an eye out for these two. As noted earlier, success from the Idol finalists is somewhat expected. But success at this kind of level from those who didn’t even make the semi-finals would be something new. Now you can follow Foxes On Idol & RealityNewsOnline on Twitter and on Facebook! On Twitter, you can get up to the minute notifications on article postings and other reality TV news by following us. So head on over to RealityNewsOnline’s Twitter page! On Facebook, you can become a fan, join discussions, and more! If you haven’t already, be sure to check out these other recent articles on Foxes On Idol & RealityNewsOnline:
David Bloomberg is the Editor of Foxes On Idol, and can be reached at RNO@pobox.com. You can also follow him on Twitter! Be sure to sign up for the RealityNewsOnline/FoxesOnIdol e-mail update so you can stay informed about new articles on both sites! Also make sure to check out RealityNewsOnline for recaps and articles covering other reality TV shows. For even more news about American Idol, be sure to check SirLinksALot: American Idol! View Printable version of this article
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(off of her 
) on this week’s results show. (This is apparently in addition to last year’s winner, Kris Allen, also performing and talking about his trip to Haiti.)
and 
both got book deals – but let’s face it, Taylor won the show and Sanjaya became a phenomenon of his own during his time in the finals. There is a big difference between where Chris is and where these two ended up. So unless he can get some big publicity, I don’t see this book really going anywhere.
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