You mean reality singing competitions aren’t all they’re cracked up to be?
I know it may be hard to believe these days, but back when Kelly Clarkson won American Idol it was far and away the biggest show on television and a certified cultural phenomenon. By the time Ruben Studdard beat out Clay Aiken in the season 2 finale, over 38 MILLION people were tuned in, making it the fourth most watched television broadcast of the year and even beating out the Academy Awards by 5 million viewers.
The show launched many singing careers over its first few years, including of course Carrie Underwood, Jennifer Hudson, Chris Daughtry, Kellie Pickler, Adam Lambert, and more.
As the years went on though, the show lost a lot of its cultural relevance and starmaking ability. These days most people couldn’t tell you who’s on the show, and winning a reality singing competition – much less appearing on one – is far from a guarantee of success.
But hey, at least you get some nice prizes if you win, right?
Well as it turns out, maybe not…
American Idol season 1 winner Kelly Clarkson recently had another reality show champion on her talk show, welcoming season 4 winner of The Traitors Rob Rausch. They got to discussing their time on reality TV, and Clarkson joked that at least Rausch got a nice payday for his win – when he revealed that he hadn’t even received his $220,800 cash prize yet.
Apparently this struck a nerve with Clarkson, who went on to recall her own experience with American Idol and their misleading promises:
“I relate to this so hardcore, because whenever I won, they sold my – you probably weren’t alive when I was on American Idol – but I literally was on this show and they were like, ‘Oh, you win a million dollars or whatever.’ No, you didn’t. They lied. You did not. No, it was like a million dollars worth of investment in you.”
Now, for Clarkson that worked out pretty well. But for most contestants, I can almost guarantee that they would rather have the cold hard cash than whatever intangible “million dollars worth of investment” the show provided.
These days, the show advertises a prize of $250,000 plus a recording contract – but what they don’t tell contestants is that apparently that cash prize is actually structured as an advance on their studio album. For example, season 16 winner Maddie Poppe revealed that she was paid $125,000 before heading into the studio, and only received the second half after completing her album.
Pretty sneaky.
But it sounds like there was another promise that Clarkson was even more upset about Idol not keeping:
“They said you get a car, and I needed it because my car was bashed in and I couldn’t afford the deductible. And no, I did not get a car.
And then Clay Aiken, who didn’t win the second season, got a car…and his mom. I was like, ‘What?’ I remember Clay telling me that the second season, he’s like, ‘Yeah, they gave my mom one.’ I was like, ‘I’m going to actually kick your ass right now.'”
I mean, we all know that these reality shows aren’t actually what they seem. Clay Aiken actually had an insightful interview a while back where he explained why these reality shows fail to produce superstars these days:
“When we were on the show, the show was owned by and produced by 19 Entertainment, which was our record label and our management company also. So they were also producing the show…The people who came off the show would then become artists on their record label and for their management company, which meant that the show had a vested interest in making sure that those artists became career artists.”
But the production company sold much of its stake in Idol, and at that point the show was largely owned by the network – which no longer cared about the artists’ success after the show, and only worried about ratings:
“The network had really no vested interest in whether the artists became big stars or not. The network needed a good show that rated well, that now got shared well on social media, and if the artist did well? Who cares. Because they didn’t have a stake in them afterwards.”
Basically, the producers of the show are only worried about ratings and not an artist’s success after the cameras are off and the winner is crowned. That’s why these shows are so personality-driven now, with the judges often serving as the stars even more than the contestants.
Of course that would make me even more mad if I didn’t get the car they promised me…
