On With The Showdown! Hurtling toward American
Idol's hotly anticipated climax;
finalists Kelly Clarkson, Nikki McKibbin and Justin Guarini savor living
large in a mansion equipped with a personal chef (and an on-call shrink)
Tom Gliatto, Alexis Chiu, Pamela Warrick and Teena Hammond in Los Angeles, Steve
Helling in Atlanta, Bob Calandra in Doylestown and Alicia Dennis in Texas
People, September 9,
2002
Sunup on L.A.'s Mulholland Drive and the only evidence Tamyra Gray ever dwelled
here with the other American Idol finalists is a note she left behind, like some
message from a reality-TV ghost. Neatly printed in red marker on an erasable
white board, it can be found in the kitchen of the 13-bedroom playhouse that
serves as home to the finalists of the popular FOX talent competition.
"Hello guys," it reads. "I am not good at goodbyes. ... You are
all so special, gifted and talented. Let this be your best week ever on this
show. No need 4 stress or worries. Have fun. I so don't want any of you 2 be
stressed this week."
It's very Tamyra, sweet and thoughtful. But no need 4 stress? Only an ex
finalist could come up with that mantra. Gray, to many ears the most
accomplished pop stylist on Idol, left the house Aug. 22, less than 24 hours
after millions of call-in voters unexpectedly gave the 23-year-old from
Norcross, Ga., the boot--provoking howls of disbelief across an Idol-worshipping
nation. (The audience for the show has grown steadily to more than 15 million.)
Fellow contestant RJ Helton, 21, endured the same ritual the previous week.
"We have a couple hours to pack and leave by Thursday morning," he
says. "I cried the entire time."
What with their waking hours packed with song rehearsal, voice coaching,
wardrobe selection, promotional appearances and daydreams of CDs flying out of
stores--the top prize is a recording contract--no one at Idol Manor has time to
mourn Tamyra this morning. By the time this article hits newsstands, in fact,
there will be but two finalists, destined to face off in an hour-long pop-song
duel Sept. 3. The winner will be revealed the next night in a two-hour special.
Kelly Clarkson, 20, of Burleson, Texas, is hunting around for throat lozenges.
By now her voice is so frayed she downs a capful of olive oil before singing.
"I take it the hard way," she says. "It's very, very nasty."
Justin Guarini, already a pop idol to the girls who scream his name
when he steps out of limos at events, needs to go accessory shopping. Thanks to
a little water and moisturizer, his cloud of dark-blond curls has already sprung
to full attention. "It's easy," says the 23-year-old from Doylestown,
Pa. "It kind of does its own thing."
Nikki McKibbin, 23, the vermilion-haired, tongue-pierced, rough-singin' gal from
Grand Prairie, Texas, is trying to decide on which color--or, not one for
understatement, colors--to wear for a photo shoot. She may also have, oh, a
concern or two about her survival chances. On the Tuesday-night concert shows,
she has stood there smiling in the face of criticism (and a smidgen of praise)
from the celebrity judges: singer-dancer Paula Abdul, record producer Randy
Jackson and brickbat-hurling British music exec Simon Cowell. On the Wednesday
broadcasts, where hosts Ryan Seacrest and Brian Dunkleman reveal the results of
the viewers' phone-in vote, Nikki has consistently, barely skirted doom, like a
French noblewoman in a punk wig expecting to be summoned to the guillotine.
"I'm sure I'm out," she whispered to Seacrest on Aug. 21.
But this morning Nikki is surprisingly calm and in control, makeup off and
girlish freckles exposed. "I'm not a tough, gripey rocker child," she
says. "I'm a very quiet person." A single mom (to Tristen, 4, who's
home in Texas), Nikki says she's used to getting by on little sleep. Besides,
"This is all just so normal now."
To anyone else it's the classic, breathless tale of young lives transformed
overnight. "The pressure is amazing," says Randy Jackson. "Two
months ago they were just kids trying to make it." When Idol producers
began their open auditions last spring, Justin was selling home-alarm systems
door-to-door, Nikki was staging karaoke parties at bars, and Kelly was a
cocktail waitress. Now actors on other FOX series sometimes seem like fans.
"You would be such a huge Broadway star," Malcolm in the Middle's Jane
Kaczmarek told Kelly. But the pace is so exhausting, even with a small fleet of
personal assistants and chauffeurs, "there are days I just don't
shower," says Kelly. Lately, she has managed on as little as three to four
hours' sleep. "I do worry about them," says Idol's co-executive
producer Nigel Lythgoe. "The stress level of learning songs and performing
them live on television is huge. Most artists never do that in a lifetime."
Which is why the show keeps a psychologist on call for the kids. (He checks in
with them regularly.)
Forget the Freud, says Simon Cowell: "They're about to become rich and
famous--we should all have that pressure." Paid an undisclosed fee per show
(plus a lump $ 2,000 sum for clothes), the final 10 will all sing on (and
receive royalties from) a compilation album. In October they'll reunite for a
concert tour. Above all these kids are living out their dreams. "I've
spent 23 years preparing for this," says Justin, who was 4 when he made his
singing debut in a boys' choir. "I could be sitting at a desk or in a
cubicle. I'd go insane."
He definitely wouldn't have taken up temporary residence in a rented
13,500-sq.-ft. mansion that makes MTV's Real World look like a dormitory of
painted cinder block. "It's a total bubble," says Seacrest, although Justin
prefer to calls it "our sanctuary." With sweeping views of the San
Fernando Valley, the home contains eight bathrooms, a pool, a Jacuzzi and steam
room ("my favorite thing in the morning," says Kelly), plush furniture
in hip colors--chartreuse and purple--two big-screen TVs, a rowing machine, a
treadmill, a Foosball table and a laundry room. A chef prepares meals to order.
(Justin and Kelly will have steak tonight, but Nikki doesn't eat red
meat: chicken for her.) The kitchen is stocked with snack staples: Cap'n Crunch,
Oreos, peanut butter, jelly, processed cheese slices, ice cream. Kelly often
grabs honey-wheat bread and whips up a sandwich--turkey, ham, mustard, mayo and
corn chips to add crunch: "I make 'em good."
She has more elbowroom at the kitchen counter as the number has dwindled from 10
finalists on July 16 to these last three. No more game nights playing Twister
and Cranium. The staircase that once echoed with the footsteps of Ryan Starr,
19, running up and down to exercise is silent. "It is a little lonely
now," admits Nikki, even if she once had a minor tiff with Ryan over
picking a costume. Kelly, who shared a bedroom with Tamyra Gray and Christina
Christian, 21, now has it all to herself. "But I miss them," she says.
The finalists, who hug and cheer as if they were an Olympics team, claim this is
genuine affection. "We've been through so many emotional ups and
downs," says Christina, who set the housemates' waterworks gushing when a
sinus infection forced her into the hospital on Aug. 7. "It all brought us
together." Not together enough to spark any romances--she and Nikki
regard Justin "as a brother," says Kelly. Yet even so, says Justin,
the friendships are "strange and wonderful," sort of ordinarily
humdrum too. When the gang heads out to Blockbuster, they pick the movie
democratically.
With the beloved Tamyra gone, who will win seems genuinely up in the air. Fans
have been disturbed by the news that several hundred callers, taking advantage
of high-tech computer connections, are able to cast 10,000 votes apiece in a
single night. The producers, however, say this has not had a skewing effect. Has
Nikki hung on because America loves the underdog? Early top dog Justin came
close to losing after giving off too much attitude one week: appealing to the
studio audience over the head of Cowell, who hadn't liked his version of
"Sunny." Justin apologized on air the next week. "That was my
low point," he says. "I realized, 'This is not who I am.'"
Tamyra has no such doubts. "I managed to do what I set out to do--get my
voice heard," she says. Already signed to a management contract by the
show's producers, she earned the praise of no less than pop king Burt Bacharach.
"She was as good as anybody I've heard on television," he says.
But right now the remaining competitors are determined to win the hearts of
America and (if he has one) Simon Cowell. This morning no one notices as an
assistant takes a cloth to the message board and erases Tamyra's sweet farewell.
After all, they've got a show to do. "There are times you want to get
away," says Guarini. "But I wouldn't trade this for anything."
--Tom Gliatto --Alexis Chiu, Pamela Warrick and Teena Hammond in Los Angeles,
Steve Helling in Atlanta, Bob Calandra in Doylestown and Alicia Dennis in Texas
BOX STORY:
Justin Guarini
As a little boy Justin spent so much time on the job with his father, former
Atlanta police chief Eldrin Bell, 66, the officers called him Little Chief.
"There were times Justin would be in his pajamas in the backseat of my
cruiser at night," Bell recalls. By the time he was in pre-school, Little
Chief wanted to be Big Star. "He never had any qualms about getting in
front of a camera," says stepsister Dianna Beach, 44, who got to know
Justin after he moved to Doylestown, Pa., at age 51/2 to live with his mom,
Kathy, 53, a former TV journalist, and her new husband, retired physicist Jerry
Guarini, 69. "His voice was almost angelic." Unlike his friend and
classmate, the pop singer Pink, Guarini--who also happens to be a distant cousin
of actor Samuel L. Jackson's wife--put his showbiz dream on hold until he
finished Central Bucks East High. But Bell had already given him the advice that
today serves him so well on Idol: "I said, 'Smile! Even if they run you out
of town, you'll look like you're leading a parade.'"