Lester Cohen/WireImage.comJoe Perry wasn't the only person in the house to help Steven Tyler celebrate his birthday on American Idol tonight!
Tyler's famous daughter Liv Tyler attended Idol's results show, and to say the top 10 contestants were excited to see Steven's daughter in the audience is a bit of an understatement. They may or may not have been jumping up and down and clapping.
So who was most excited to see Liv? Plus, which three contestants danced with audience members? And what did the judges have to say to Erika Van Pelt after her elimination?
The top 10 contestants were all abuzz when they learned Steven's daughter was in the house after Hollie Cavanaugh spotted the actress in the audience and pointed her out to her fellow hopefuls, saying, "It's Liv Tyler!" Their reaction: jaws dropping to the floor.
During a commercial break, Steven brought Liv up to meet the contestants and Skylar Laine basically pushed the other contestants out of the way to hug the Lord of the Rings star. In a word, it was adorable. It turns out Colton Dixon is a bit of an LOTR geek, as he tweeted after the show, "Just met Arwen from lord of the rings. Liv Tyler is gorgeous."
The good time started for Skylar even before meeting Liv: She, Hollie and Joshua Ledet came out before the show started to dance with some of the audience. Yes, really! When the emcee asked three audience members to come onstage for a dance contest set to Beyoncé's "Single Ladies," the three contestants decided to join in on the fun...only to get shy when their numbers were called and ran offstage laughing.
As for tonight's eliminated contestant Erika Van Pelt, some audience members were confused when she brought decorations over to the stools when she was told she was in the bottom three. Turns out, it was a planned bit with Elise Testone, as the two friends had found themselves in the bottom three together the previous two weeks. How do we know this? Elise told us after last night's performance show! "I'm going to bring decorations for the bottom-three stools just in case," she said with a laugh. "Erika and I are going shopping after this and just get some streamers, maybe a marker to sign the stool, because no matter how good we did, I've been in the bottom three the last two weeks, so I'm just kind of getting comfortable."
After the show ended, Erika chatted with the three judges about their decision not to use their one save on her, telling them they made the right decision and that they should use it for when America does something "really crazy." Their response? "This is crazy." Executive producer Nigel Lythgoe also came up to Erika to tell her, "If it means anything, Jimmy Iovine said you were the best last night."
As for Erika's bottom-two partner Heejun Han, he received some harsh words from Iovine about his performance. What we found weird? When we asked Heejun last night if Jimmy knew what he was planning on doing during his performance, he told us the mentor liked the idea, along with guest mentor Diddy. "Oh yeah, they liked it!" he said. "They were like "do it do it do it do it!" I was like ‘OK guys.'"