Antonella Barba's provocative photo scandal created quite a media firestorm while she competed as a semifinalist at the onset of American Idol's sixth season. However once she was eliminated on the cusp of reaching the Top 12, Barba says she was able to do what she had presumably hoped would happen to those photos -- she vanished.
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"I just wanted to stay out of the public eye a bit," Barba told The Washington Post in an interview published in the newspaper's June 3 edition.
Now it looks as though the 21-year-old Point Pleasant, NJ-native is ready to reappear, as The Post reported the Catholic University architecture student plans to take summer classes in an effort to make-up the work she missed while competing on Idol's sixth season, with the goal being to graduate from the Washington, D.C.-area school with her friends next spring.
But she didn't entirely rule out the possibility of giving her pursuit of a career in the entertainment industry another try.
"If I want to do music, I'll have to pursue it. Wouldn't it be great if I could do [both school and music]?" Barba told The Post before supplying a wishy-washy response on if she'll return to Catholic University following her summer classes. "Probably... It's a question mark."
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Barba's pictorial scandal is well documented. Once the initial group of provocative photos were posted on various websites, even racier photos followed in the coming days and quickly spread across the Internet. Her best friend claimed the steamier pics weren't of Barba and Idol producers said they had no intentions of disqualifying her from the competition as she continued to survive Idol 6's semifinals despite less than stellar vocal abilities. While the judges may have panned her singing, they supported her throughout the entire ordeal, which sparked criticism from former The View co-host Rosie O'Donnell as well as disqualified Idol 2 semifinalist Frenchie Davis.
Before she was eventually eliminated from Idol 6 when the Top 12 finalists were revealed, she received offers from both "Girls Gone Wild" and SugarDVD to help launch her career as an entertainer, however it wasn't the type of job opportunities she was hoping for.
"You have to wait for what's right," she told The Post. "You can't take the first thing."
Once Barba was eliminated, she openly wondered how the photos were released in the first place before vanishing from the nation's consciousness as Idol's sixth season rolled into and through the finals, with Jordin Sparks being crowned its winner. As another installment of Idol came to a close, Barba said it's a chapter in her life that's already been written and she can only learn from the lessons it taught her despite not knowing what they are yet.
"I don't regret going on American Idol," she told The Post. "I'm thankful for the opportunities... Even if you've made right or wrong decisions, you can't regret them, because you've learned from them. Everything happens for a reason. I'd like to know what it is, though."
About The Author: Christopher Rocchio