Heavy/Getty Ryan Seacrest hosting "American Idol" in 2016
When Broadway performer, singer and choreographer Todrick Hall got eliminated from season 9 of “American Idol,” he remembers feeling “devastated” — but not because he didn’t win.
Hall, who now has 1.6 million Instagram followers and seems to be constantly juggling multiple entertainment projects, from hosting an HGTV show to choreographing for his pal Taylor Swift, wrote in an Instagram post on January 9, 2024, that he was heartbroken leaving the show “because I went out being someone I’m not.”
Hall had already come out as gay before his “Idol” audition, he wrote, but he purposefully hid his sexuality on the show for fear he wouldn’t be accepted by the judges or viewers. He’s one of multiple successful alumni to voiced something similar in recent weeks, from season 8 runner-up Adam Lambert to season 18 winner Samantha Diaz.
Here’s what you need to know:
Todrick Hall Says ‘Idol’ Producers Told Him He Needed to ‘Appeal to Middle America’
Hall, 38, posted the video of his audition for the 2010 season, which he wrote “is hard for me to watch.” Dressed in a checkered flannel shirt and ripped jeans, he performed a cute original song for judges Simon Cowell, Kara DioGuardi, Randy Jackson and guest judge Joe Jonas.
“Getting that golden ticket was such a bittersweet moment,” Hall wrote. “I was happy because against the advice of the producers of Idol I sang an original song (which was unheard of at the time) and my creativity got me through!”
“But, when I watch my response and my behavior in speaking to them I can just see an uncomfortable young black boy who already came out of the closet,” he continued, “only to feel the pressure to pretend that I hadn’t. The way I was moving and speaking was just so not who I am or even was at the time.”
Hall said that though he was dating his “first true love” at the time, he brought his mom and friend Julia to the audition instead “just so to hopefully deflect from the idea that I could possibly be gay. It’s just so weird to me now.”
“I’m happy that I did Idol, and happy that it went the way that it did,” Hall added, but then wrote of his elimination, “I vowed to myself in the car on the way home that I would never deny my true self an opportunity. I’d rather go down in flames as my real self, that go up in lights as someone I’m not.”
In a second post about the show on January 11, he wrote, “I wanted to be myself, but the producers kept saying I needed to ‘appeal to middle America’ and I interpreteded that as ‘don’t get too comfortable or too gay on Fox babes.’ I’d hear the other contestants be praised and rewarded for mediocrity, and I was criticized for my creativity.”
Hall started a YouTube channel shortly after his elimination, he said, and one of his first videos — of him singing his order at a McDonald’s drive-thru — went viral, causing more people to recognize him from that than from his journey on “American Idol.” Prior to being on the show, he had been on Broadway, appearing with “Idol” winner Fantasia Barrino in “The Color Purple.”
Multiple “Idol” Alum Didn’t Talk About Their LGBTQ+ Status on the Show
ABCSeason 8 runner-up Adam Lambert returned to “American Idol” to perform and mentor contestants on April 30, 2023.
Though plenty of other “American Idol” finalists are part of the LGBTQ+ community, the topic of was rarely addressed during their appearances on “American Idol,” especially during the early years of the show.
Season 2 runner-up Clay Aiken came out publicly in 2008, five years after he was on the show, when he appeared with his newborn son on the cover of People magazine. But there had been rumors for years that he was gay, according to Today, and he denied it or avoided talking about it for years, per Newsweek.
Meanwhile, a year before Hall appeared on “Idol,” Lambert also kept his sexual orientation a secret during season 8 — until someone outed him publicly, at which point producers encouraged him to be open about it.
In a recent interview with Them, Lambert said he was publicly outed a few weeks before the “Idol” finale when someone found and posted several social media photos of Lambert “making out in drag” with an ex-boyfriend. Producers of the show hired a publicist for Lambert in case there was backlash.
“And so they booked me the cover of Rolling Stone, which was like, well, that’s a good place to come out of the closet,” he recalled. “So yeah, I think I lost some fans at that point, but I always said to myself like, well, those aren’t the fans I want anyway,” said Lambert.
In 2020, Diaz became the first openly LGBTQ+ and non-binary “American Idol” winner, according to the Washington Post. But producers never mentioned that fact during the singer’s journey on season 18, which aired during the height of the COVID pandemic.
The day after her big win, the singer told the New York Post, “I am a child of God, so that’s always gonna be first. That’s actually the only label that I ever want to have. But I like what I like, and that’s just that, you know? And it’s not men. Like, at all.”
In 2022, according to MJ’s Big Blog, Diaz addressed “haters” who continued to criticize them in a since-deleted Instagram post.
“I don’t care for opinions anymore and I definitely don’t care about how ANYONE else feels about me wanting to marry a woman some day,” Diaz wrote. “God is a God of LOVE . I know that my love will not make God hate me how I used to think it would. God accepts me , my grandmother accepts me & so any other opinion can honestly be kept to itself.”