'American Idol' runner-up Bo Bice says he prayed that he'd lose the competition

Is he being bitterly honest or just bitter? Only he knows.


In a Rolling Stone interview published Friday, American Idol 4 runner-up Bo Bice told the music magazine that despite what viewers might have believed, the southern rocker didn't want to win the smash-hit nationwide music competition in which he had been competing all spring.

"People ask me, 'What were you thinking while you stood there waiting for them to announce the winner?'" Bice told his Rolling Stone interviewer. His answer? "''Please, God, don't let me win this thing.''

Explaining why he would feel that way, the 29-year-old Birmingham, Alabama native told the magazine that he felt that the competition wasn't a good fit for his musical style. "'The label 'American Idol' was not for me. I'm not a pop person. It would have been harder to play my kind of music if I had won,'"

"Inside Your Heaven," the CD single of the song he performed during American Idol's fourth season finale, will be released Tuesday. Once American Idol's summer tour ends, Bice will head into the studio to record his debut album with producer Clive Davis -- where he hopes that he'll be allowed to include some of his own music. "I would rather put out an album of my own songs, and if it flops, it flops."


"I just came in being myself," stated Bice. "And for some crazy reason, that's what people were wanting. Which is why I am truly the guy who's the most freaked out about everything that's happened."