Photo Courtesy of Rolling Stone/Us Weekly
By Lauren Campbell
Yesterday I had the privilege of going to a Rolling Stone/Us Weekly Luncheon featuring a Q & A session with American Idol finalists Kris Allen and Adam Lambert. I am addicted to the show and they were my favorites throughout the season and was excited to see what they were like in “real life.”
The guys turned out to actually be a lot like how they are portrayed on the show. Kris Allen is a cute, nice, all American guy. He handled the questions very well but at times you could see that he was a little overwhelmed by everything surrounding him. Just a laid back guy that accidentally became an American Idol. He tried out after last minute road trip with his brother and in the later weeks he genuinely seemed a little surprised that he was put through.
Adam on the other hand is very comfortable in the limelight and was poised and articulate in all his answers. His journey to be an idol was a little more thought out much like his performances on the show. He seemed ready to conquer the world and definitely is a pro at handling media already. He was at times hilariously honest and seemed to have a really good understanding of how to play the AI game by targeting different types of songs and appealing to the many AI demos. He appeared to be very self-aware was an interesting subject.
I was a little shocked at how genuine the friendship between Adam and Kris appeared. At the end of the day, American Idol is a competition, but you could tell Adam was genuinely happy for Kris. I knew from watching the show that they were roommates in the house, but the way they acted showed they had great camaraderie and seemed like they had been really good for friends for awhile. The two played off of each other quite well during the interview, which made for much more interesting and funny answers since they were often joking with each other. I found myself laughing/smiling several times throughout the hour at their witty comments to the audience and each other.
Some fun tidbits I learned from the interview: they both were really close to Alison and would have picked her to be in the finals if they couldn’t have been in it with each other. Kara was their favorite judge. Simon isn’t as mean as he seems on the show. The contestants are not on house arrest but have a highly structured Idol schedule and a curfew while on the show. The rumors of Adam becoming the new lead singer of Queen are just rumors but don’t rule out a possible collaboration. The producers have final approval on the songs they sing and did not disclose to them how close the votes were. Kris’s wife had also advised for him to keep quiet about their marriage in the beginning to help lure in voters who thought he was cute (smart woman). He admitted that he thought their personal lives did have an affect on the voting outcome. They both seem really happy to be handling the media storm surrounding them together.