All American Idol contestants dream of winning the competition, but there can only be only one winner each season. Every other contestant is voted off, or as Ryan Seacrest might more gently put it, sees their Idol journey come to an end.
With American Idol‘s Season 22 finale set for Sunday May 19, we decided to revisit the performances that got some well-known Idol contestants voted off the show. All are contestants that finished in the top 10 for their season, but did not advance so far in the competition that they performed multiple songs on their final night on the show. (If a contestant performs two or three songs, you can’t say with certainty which performance it was that didn’t find favor with audiences.)
Some of these contestants may have just run out of steam in the competition and would have been voted off even with a different song selection or a different performance approach. But, being human, many have probably wondered over the years if only they’d done something differently, would they have made it to the following week?
Several of these contestants went on to do just fine, thank you. Jennifer Hudson is an EGOT winnter, something no Idol champion can claim. Constantine Maroulis received a 2009 Tony nomination for best actor in a musical for Rock of Ages. Kellie Pickler has received two nominations at both the Country Music Awards and the Academy of Country Music Awards.
Here are the final performances by these 11 contestants, the ones that brought their dreams of becoming the next American Idol to an abrupt end.
