We’re back tonight to find out who else rounds out the Top 23. No, that’s not a typo. More on that later. There’s not much to recap here, since everything went (pretty much) as expected. Really, the big surprise of the night was “what the hell is going on with Chris Golightly?”
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Idol producers were hoping that the audience wasn’t paying attention when the “final two” guys, Thaddeus Johnson and Andrew Garcia hit the screen for the “final spot” in the Top 24. Wait… what? As of that point there were two spots left, one of which went to Chris Golightly, who ended up on stage with Ryan Seacrest and the Top 24. So why was Chris so shockingly absent from the Top 24? Why didn’t they show him making it?
And why did Tim Urban suddenly jump in and start dancing at the end?
Shortly before the show aired, we discovered that Tim Urban had a page up on the AI official site, and that Chris Golightly did not. This sparked a rumor that Tim Urban was in, and Chris Golightly was out. Someone definitely got fired today.
So what’s the deal here? Michael Slezak, of Entertainment Weekly, noticed the same thing before heading to twitter today. He vowed to his followers that he would get to the bottom of it.
And that’s not all…
Andrea Reiher of Zap2It.com noticed the switcheroo too: “EXCEPT WAIT! Tim Urban was in the guys’ montage and Chris Golightly, rumored Top 24 contestant, was not in the montage.”
MJ, of MJ’s Big Blog covered it saying: “Notice that Tim Urban was not revealed until the boys dance at the very end?
Rumor has it, Chris Golightly (Orphan boy) was DQ’d or quit, with Tim Urban taking his place. You see, Chris was on the spoiler list from Day 1. But today, when the kids at IDF discovered the links to the contestant pages (seriously, TPTB at Idol are so dumb sometimes) at the official site, they found all the spoilers were correct except for Chris/Tim. With Tim Urban not shown making it through to the 24 tonight, it makes you wonder if the rumors are true.”
Vote For The Worst claims they know the secret: “Chris Golightly was in all of the group shots for the top 24, but all of a sudden, Tim Urban was in the silly dance scenes. What happened? Chris was disqualified? BWAHAHAHAHA. Loving it! Best news of the week.
According to Idol360, Samantha Musa twittered that Chris was disqualified for having an old contrac that he didn’t tell them about. Love it!”
Samantha Musa twittered: “Just got off the phone with Chris GoLightly. He was disqualified yesterday, after already being told he was in the top 24, over some bogus. Old contract. The contract expired, but they disqualified him for not telling them. He is talking to lawyers, but doubt the(y) can do anything.”
So there you have it. Old Contracts can be a bitch. Chris Golightly gone. Tim Urban in. But why did Idol hide it? That’s the new mystery.
Mac, I don’t know your email. I came on here and only saw jp@joesplaceblog.com.
I don’t know how else to contact you guys so I used that one and you weren’t an after-thought. Last night was crazy and I sent emails out at all hours of the night to Idol bloggers.
I want all the input I get, I wasn’t leaving you out on purpose and I got mad when you came on my recap and got all shirty with me.
I’m sorry. I want to be friends! Idol writers gotta stick together.
My email is areiher@zap2it.com or andrealeigh203@gmail.com.
I would love your input, Mac (and Joe and whoever else). I asked each Idol writer to pick one girl and one guy who are their frontrunners with a short blurb about why. Quick and dirty, not like a crazy dissertation or something.
I hope I hear from you!
Andrea