Access Blogs
Amanda Overmyer Comes to Access
So, I didn't realize, until someone pointed it out to me today, that when Amanda Overmyer is surrounded and hugged by her fellow contestants (as she finished singing her swan song) that the show was going into commercial. So, viewers didn't really catch the uncomfortable look Amanda had on her face as this happened.
We all saw it inside the studio and in the picture on my blog yesterday you can certainly tell she is not thrilled. Click on it to make it bigger and study the expression on Amanda's face. This morning I said to her, "you could not have looked more uncomfortable."
She candidly told me,
"When you have 15 people coming up and they're like, 'ugh! This is the worst thing, it's a crisis!' It's like, god, stop touching me. It's like it'll be fine. There were other people crying, I wasn't crying. I was like, it's fine, go sit back down guys."
Amanda is not exactly the warm and fuzzy type around strangers. This is not a bad thing. It's just who she is. When I met her at the Top 12 party she basically told me she wasn't on the show to make friends, she was there to compete. This morning she reiterated this,
"I mean I'm close to them in a sense that when you're with the same group of people for as long as I've been, there's an element of camaraderie there. On top of that I don't want to be mauled on TV."
"Success to me is a strong healthy family. If this is just 15 minutes of fame, I'm not going to chase it my whole life trying to get it back. I'll take it for what it is and move on."
This is not to say she is not going to try and go for a record deal or something else in the entertainment business, she was just being realistic about her prospects. Considering how many past Idol contestants have not found huge success, I just found this to be a very profound comment.
I was a little disturbed this morning though when she kept yawning during my interview with her. Apparently, she had gone out with some friends and knocked back a few too many. She apologized and told me it was because she was hung-over. The publicist nearly had a heart attack when she said this. That's Amanda though. Telling it like it is.
Later in the day the hangover had worn off and I found a much more energetic Amanda when she came to the Access Hollywood stage. Her guard seemed to come down from earlier in the morning and she was very chatty with our writer, Michael, and myself about her experience on the show. She was, as we suspected, glad to have been voted off at Week 11 so she would not have to go on the Idol tour. She told me she did everything she could to not make it look on TV like she was in misery during the group numbers.
I have to say Amanda sounded great in our studio. This is the first time I really heard her voice loud and clear. The band tends to drown out her vocals in the Idol studio. I now can see why the judges put her through to the Top 24. She has an incredible voice. A very funky, unique, raspy quality that I hope will land her a record deal. If not though, this girl will be just fine going back to her life in Lafayette, Indiana.
I'll be taking a break from "Idol" next week spending the week in St. George, Utah at the Fitness Ridge Spa - which was featured on the "Biggest Loser" this week. I'll be back with more Dish on Monday, April 1st!
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