Song selection, not exotic dance moves, or a "conspiracy" doomed David Hernandez's American Idol run, the ousted contestant said Thursday.
Hernandez, who became the subject of headlines last week when it was revealed that he'd worked at as a dancer at a gay nightclub, was eliminated from the show on Wednesday night, the first member of the Top 12 to meet such a fate.
Speaking with reporters on the morning after the exit, Hernandez said he was shocked this his run ended so abruptly, but insisted he didn't think he lost votes because the public was uncomfortable because of his former profession.
"No, I really don't think so," Hernandez said in the telephone press conference. "I really believe it was based on song selection."
Hernandez sang a rapid-fire version of "I Saw Her Standing There" on Tuesday night's showcase of Lennon-McCartney songs. The judges, who'd largely been complimentary in the past, blasted the performance.
Based on the hits he took, Hernandez said, he figured he'd be in the bottom three come Wednesday. But to be named the ultimate unlucky one left the 24-year-old "genuinely shocked."
Said Hernandez: "I didn't think I'd be going home."
Still, he didn't exactly agree with View cohost Elisabeth Hasselbeck, who said on her show Thursday that she wondered if Hernandez's exit was the result of a Idol "conspiracy."
"I'd like to thank Elisabeth for defending me and thinking I was eliminated prematurely," Hernandez said. "...If that was the case, it doesn't really matter anymore...I'd like to think America voted on me, and it was legitimate."
Hernandez was quizzed on the fallout from his X-rated dancing career in only the broadest of terms. The actual phrase exotic dancer was uttered in but one question. Prior to the press conference, the Idol powers that be advised reporters to "stick to the Idol experience."
Still, dribs and drabs emerged of what it was like to be an Idol contestant at the center of a controversy.
"I did a pretty good job of blocking it all out," said Hernandez, who claimed he's been avoiding the Internet and TV.
Hernandez did not sound as if he feared being cut from the show after his former nightclub boss at Dick's Cabaret in Phoenix talked to the press. As it turned out, the revelations were not news to Idol producers.
"If they weren't comfortable with it," Hernandez said, "I wouldn't have been on the show."
Hernandez himself said he wasn't ashamed of anything in his past, including presumably his onetime aspiration of becoming an infotainment show host.
"If this is the worst thing that comes out in my career," he said, referencing the dancing gig, "then I'm pretty good to go."
Other tidbits:- Hernandez originally wanted to sing "Let It Be" on Tuesday night. But Brooke White won the lottery. (When two or more contestants want to sing the same number, Hernandez said, the song goes to whoever pulls it out of a hat.) Still, Hernandez said "I Saw Her Standing There" was his next-best option and a pick he stood by.
- He would have sung "Yesterday" during next week's Lennon-McCartney redux.
- He bares no ill will toward Kristy Lee Cook for staying, even though her countrified "Eight Days a Week" might have been the week's biggest Idol disaster: "The competition right now is so intense," Hernandez said. "Everybody can sing. Nobody is safe now."
- Hernandez is looking for a label home and would like to drop an album in about a year. So he said. About 400 times.
- Reality TV is not on his current to-do list. "I'm probably going to watch reruns of Friends or something," he said. "I just want to relax."