American Idol 2 (Courtesy Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

The second season of American Idol premiered on January 19, 2003 and continued until May 20, 2003. It was won by Ruben Studdard.

Auditions

Auditions were held in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Detroit, Atlanta, Nashville, and Austin in the fall of 2002.

At the Miami auditions, a young man named Edgar Nova auditioned with an off-key and lyrically incorrect rendition of Enrique Iglesias' "My Love." None of the judges put him through to the Hollywood round. Instead of leaving the audition venue, Nova re-entered the line, telling other hopefuls that the judges had asked him to do so. Security was eventually called to escort him from the premises. Nova then flew at his own expense to Los Angeles to attend the auditions there. Sporting a different hairstyle than he had in Miami, he hoped that the judges would not recognize him from before. His ruse was a failure, but the judges allowed him to try out one more time. Nova's audition was again unsuccessful. He would resurface during Season 3 with yet another unsuccessful audition (which was not televised). Simon Cowell did, however, compliment him on his tenacity. Nova tried to enter yet another audition venue during Season 4, but security staff was shown advancing on him in a stairwell, causing him to leave hurriedly.

Semi-finals

The format changed slightly in Season 2; instead of three groups of 10, the semi-finalists were grouped into four groups of 8.

The 32 semi-finalists (increased from 30 in Season 1) were:

• J.D. Adams

1. "All In Love Is Fair" (Stevie Wonder)

• Clay Aiken
• Juanita Barber

1. "What About the Children"

• Rebecca Bond

1. "Caught Up In The Rapture" (Anita Baker, 1986)

• Kimberly Caldwell
• Sylvia Chibiliti

1. "Didn't We Almost Have It All" (Whitney Houston, 1988)

• Corey Clark
• Samantha Cohen

1. "Something He Can Feel"

• Candice Coleman

1. "Piece of My Heart" (Janis Joplin, 1968)

• Equoia Coleman

1. "The Way We Were" (Barbra Streisand, 1973)

• Chip Days:#"Song For You"

1. "Rock with You" (Michael Jackson, 1980)

• Julia DeMato
• Meosha Denton

1. "How Do I Live" (LeAnn Rimes, 1997)

• Patrick Fortson

1. "Un-Break My Heart" (Toni Braxton, 1996)

• Jennifer Fuentes

1. "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" (Whitney Houston, 1987)

• Louis Gazzara

1. "How Am I Supposed to Live Without You" (Michael Bolton, 1990)

• Josh Gracin
• Charles Grigsby
• Ashley Hartman

1. "Touch Me In the Morning"

• Kimberly Kelsey

1. "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" (Céline Dion, 1996)

• Patrick Lake

1. "When I See You Smile" (Bad English, 1989)

• Kimberley Locke
• Vanessa Olivarez
• Bettis Richardson

1. "Thank You" (Dido, 1999)

• Jordan Segundo

1. "For Your Love"

• Hadas Shalev

1. "You Light Up My Life" (Debby Boone, 1977)

• Nasheka Siddall

1. "Open My Heart" (Madonna, 1987)
2. "Wind Beneath My Wings" (Bette Midler, 1989)

• Jacob John Smalley

1. "Anytime"

• Rickey Smith
• Ruben Studdard
• Trenyce
• George Trice

1. "Unchained Melody"

In a bizarre twist, four additional contestants were pulled into the wildcard round from those initially cut in Hollywood:

• Aliceyn Cooney
• Janine Falsone

1. "We Belong" (Pat Benatar, 1985)

• Olivia Mojica

1. "Because You Loved Me"

• Carmen Rasmusen

Controversy arose when semi-finalist Frenchie Davis was booted from the show, after topless pictures she had taken four years before the show aired surfaced on a website catering to child pornography. Davis herself was over the age of 18 when the photos were taken.

Finals

In season two, Seacrest surfaced as the lone host, since Dunkleman reportedly hated working on the show, and the studio was dissatisfied with his performance. Kristin Holt was a special correspondent.

This time, Ruben Studdard emerged as the winner with Clay Aiken as runner-up. Out of 24 million votes recorded, Studdard finished just 130,000 votes ahead of Aiken, although there remains controversy over the accuracy of the reported results. There was much discussion in the communication industry about the phone system being overloaded, and that more than 150 Million votes were dropped, making the voting invalid. Since then the voting methods have been modified to avoid this problem. In an interview prior to the start of the fifth season, executive producer Nigel Lythgoe revealed for the first time that Aiken had led the fan voting from the wild card week onward until the finale. Despite Studdard's win, Aiken has enjoyed more widespread popularity, emerging as the season's true breakout star.

A mini-controversy emerged after the finale when Simon Cowell alleged that Clay Aiken knew the results of the show nearly an hour before they were announced on-air because he had snuck a peek at Ryan Seacrest's handheld cue card backstage. On Larry King Live the next day, Aiken admitted he had indeed seen the card but could not read it in the backstage light; however, he had seen enough to determine that the name on it was too long to be "Clay Aiken". On the live broadcast, Aiken can be seen turning his body to face Studdard and whispering something in his ear right before the results were announced, a visual clue fans took as confirmation that Aiken had somehow found out he was not the winner.

During the course of the contest, Ruben became know for wearing 205 Flava jerseys representing his area code; when asked about them early in the season, Ruben told Ryan Seacrest that he was "just representing 205". Shortly after the end of the contest, Ruben sued 205 Flava, Inc. for $2 Million dollars for using his image for promotional purposes. 205 Flava responded by alleging that Ruben had accepted over $10,000 in return for wearing 205 shirts, and produced 8 cashed checks to validate their claim. The allegations, if true, were a clear violation of the American Idol rules. The lawsuit was settled out of court.

The rumor mills were buzzing once again in 2005 when Season Two contestant Corey Clark, who was himself kicked off the show because of a police record he had not disclosed to the show, alleged that he had had an affair with judge Paula Abdul. Clark also alleged that Abdul gave him preferential treatment on the show because of their alleged romance. A subsequent investigation by Fox found no evidence to support Clark's charges.

Date	Theme	Guest Judge(s)	Bottom Three
March 11	Motown	Lamont Dozier	Vanessa Olivarez	Julia DeMato	Kimberley Locke
March 18	Movies	Gladys Knight	Charles Grigsby	Corey Clark	Julia DeMato (2)
March 25	Country Music	Olivia Newton-John	Julia DeMato (3)	Kimberly Caldwell	Rickey Smith
April 1	Disco	Verdine White	Corey Clark (disqualified)
April 8	Billboard #1 Hits	Lionel Richie	Rickey Smith (2)	Kimberly Caldwell (2)	Kimberley Locke (2)
April 15	Billy Joel	Smokey Robinson	Kimberly Caldwell (3)	Carmen Rasmusen	Trenyce
April 22	Diane Warren songs	Diane Warren	Carmen Rasmusen (2)	Joshua Gracin	Trenyce (2)
			Bottom Two
April 29	Neil Sedaka songs	Neil Sedaka	Trenyce (3)	Ruben Studdard
May 6	Bee Gees Songs	Robin Gibb	Joshua Gracin (2)	Kimberley Locke (3)
May 13	Judges Choice/Contestant's Choice/Random Song		Kimberley Locke (4)
May 20	Finale		Clay Aiken	Ruben Studdard

Paul Anka made an appearance during the Season finale.

Releases

Major releases

• American Idol Season 2: All-Time Classic American Love Songs (Compilation - CD)
• "Flying Without Wings"/"Superstar" (Ruben Studdard - single)
• "Bridge over Troubled Water/This Is the Night" (Clay Aiken - single)
• Measure of a Man (Clay Aiken - CD)
• Soulful (Ruben Studdard - CD)
• "Sorry 2004" (Ruben Studdard - single)
• "8th World Wonder" (Kimberley Locke - single)
• "The Way/Solitaire" (Clay Aiken - single)
• "What If" (Ruben Studdard - single)
• One Love (Kimberley Locke - CD)
• Josh Gracin (Josh Gracin - CD)
• Merry Christmas with Love (Clay Aiken - Holiday CD)
• I Need an Angel (Ruben Studdard - Gospel CD)
• "Coulda Been" (Kimberley Locke - single)
• Favorite State of Mind (Josh Gracin - single) - August 2006
• A Thousand Different Ways (Clay Aiken - CD) - "September 2006"
• The Return (Ruben Studdard - CD) - "October 2006"
• "All Is Well" (Clay Aiken - Holiday EP) - "November 2006"
• Based on a True Story (Kimberley Locke - CD) - to be released 2007
• All About Y'all (Josh Gracin - CD) - to be released 2007

Minor or independent releases

(This list does not include pre-Idol releases)

• The One (Vanessa Olivarez)
• Jordan (Jordan Segundo)
• Carmen (Carmen Rasmusen)
• Corey Clark (Corey Clark)
• Charles Grigsby (Charles Grigsby)
• Use Your Gift (Quiana Parler)

Source: Idolsmusic.com

See also

• American Idol
• List of American Idol contestants

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.It uses material from the Wikipedia article "American Idol (Season 2)". Reality TV World is not responsible for any errors or omissions this article may contain.