Ousted 'American Idol' Alex Lambert "wasn't expecting to go home"

Alex Lambert feels it was the unexpectedness of his American Idol ouster that made it such an "emotional moment."


"I wasn't expecting to go home and a lot of people weren't expecting me to go home, so I think it was just like such a shock that the four people that went home that night, no one thought that they were going to go home," he told reporters during a Friday conference call. 

Not only wasn't he not expecting to go home, but Lambert also suggested he had been expecting to last well into the season's finals.

"There were four other people that everyone had in mind and probably six other people that people had in mind before us, so I think that was what made everybody so emotional," he said.

Lambert, Katelyn Epperly, Todrick Hall, and Lilly Scott were all eliminated from American Idol's ninth season on Thursday night after receiving the fewest home viewer votes following Tuesday and Wednesday night's broadcasts of the Top 16 semifinals performance shows.


The 19-year-old high school student who currently resides in North Richland Hills, TX was visibly distraught following the news of his elimination and continued to need consoling even after the commercial break that followed the announcement of his exit.

"It was emotional pretty much because a lot of people weren't expecting the people that went home to go home," he reiterated to reporters. 

"There's people on the Top 12 everyone thought was going home and then when they found out it was me, like, that whole day I was nervous and people were like, dude, why are you nervous?  You have no reason to be nervous.  You're going to be here.  Then, when I got cut they were just like, what?  And a lot of people that were upset were like I made it and he didn't?"

Lambert added that the judges helped ease the pain of his elimination even after the live results show ended.

"They talked to me and they pretty much told me that I need more experience and it's true and stuff, but I don't know, I felt like vocally it was my time, but I didn't have enough experience on the stage and that's pretty much what they were telling me," he explained.


"They all know I have a good voice and they tell me I have a lot of future ahead of me."

Lambert said a lot of his problem performing on American Idol was that he became "so nervous" whenever he stepped on stage.

"I feel like I just needed a few more weeks to just have a little bit more experience on that stage because it wasn't a nerve thing because I would get up there and I would be like comfortable and it felt right, but I didn't know how to look at the cameras, I didn't know how to react with the audience because I had never done it before so definitely it's something I'll easily be able to get past," he said.

"I would say it was all me, like the only person that was going to help me overcome my stage fright and my nervousness was me and it was all in my head.  I mean, I could have gone up there and had a great performance, but in my head I was thinking to nail the song vocally and I wasn't really worried about performing."

Lambert added he "never thought that the show was so much of like a performing show as a singing competition."


"I had it in my head so much like I want my vocals to be so much better than everyone else's and I guess I lost track of the fact that it was like a television show," he said.

Most of all Lambert said he feels "sorry" for his fans because he thinks he let them down. Still, he's scheduled to appear on Wednesday's The Ellen DeGeneres Show and plans to take his career from there.

"I really want to focus on my music and go take vocal lessons and stuff like that and try to go somewhere because this is the first thing I've ever done with my music and I got pretty far doing this and I have no experience at all," he said.

"I know exactly what kind of artist I want to be.  I really would like to do a bunch of acoustic stuff, but I would also like to be on some R&B tracks and like a whole bunch of different stuff.  I know my voice and I know what I can and can't do and I know what would sound good on what."






About The Author: Christopher Rocchio