'American Idol' finalists share what they sacrificed to compete on the show

Season-seven winner David Cook told Insider he finally got a job offer he'd been "working towards for a while" when he needed to take time off to fly to Hollywood.

He said his prospective employer told him he had to choose between the two.

"I was like, man, I hope this better work out," Cook told Insider. "'Cause I have to choose this. I have to see this through."

Cook said viewers can pinpoint his relief if they go back and watch the episode where he made it to the Top 24.

"I say, 'Oh, I don't have to get a job,'" he recalled. "And that was because, at that point, I was so stressed about if this doesn't shake out, then I'm back at square one trying to find a job right now."

Season-15 runner-up ASE, formerly known as La'Porsha Renae, was supposed to start a job at a call center when she found out she got a second audition for "Idol."

"I had just had my party for completing the training, and they were going to put me on the floor, and I had to turn it down," ASE told Insider.

At the time, the singer was raising her infant daughter alone, and she said she was also in the process of pressing charges against her abusive ex-husband.

"At this point in my life, I'm a new single mother, and I'm really just trying to get a job," ASE said. "So I wasn't really trying to hit it big or be famous at all. That was not on my mind."

Season-14 runner-up Clark Beckham was two weeks into his master's program for a degree in education when he dropped out to compete on "American Idol."

He told Insider he "actually loved school so much" but he wasn't a fan of "the curriculum of education."

"So I was happy to get out of there," Beckham said.

In hindsight, the musician doesn't regret dropping out of college.

"I was going to be a high-school history teacher, and after 'Idol,' of course, the door for music opened wide open," he told Insider.

Maddie Poppe, who won season 16 of "Idol," took a few days off of her first semester of college to audition for the competition.

The singer thought she might be able to juggle school and the show at the same time. But when Hollywood Week started the same week as her second semester, everything quickly became "chaotic."

"You don't get any sleep. I think they purposefully try to push you to your limits emotionally and physically and mentally just to see how you react," Poppe told Insider.

Although "Idol" offered tutoring on set, Poppe said, there wasn't enough time to study and compete.

"I was failing by the end of the week," she said. "I was failing everything and I was like, 'OK I have to quit.'"

By the time she made it to the Top 50, she decided she didn't want to pay college tuition "for nothing" and dropped out.

"I was just, like, I got to take the leap of faith and believe in myself," Poppe told Insider.

Season-one runner-up Justin Guarini told Insider that he was working for a DJ company that did weddings and bar mitzvahs when he auditioned for "American Idol."

After wowing judges and earning a ticket to Hollywood, Guarini recalled sitting down with his boss and requesting two weeks off for Hollywood Week.

"I remember him saying to me, 'You know what, you're probably going to go out there and get all famous and never come back,'" Guarini said.

Season-nine runner-up Crystal Bowersox said her golden ticket to Hollywood came with a contract that said she couldn't perform outside gigs between auditions in summer 2009 and Hollywood Week in January 2010.

Bowersox told Insider she was a single mother experiencing "borderline homelessness" at the time.

"Telling me that I couldn't perform? That was my sole source of income," she said.

The singer said she found a way around the rules to continue supporting her family.

"I started using a different name locally," Bowersox told Insider. "And I think it ended up getting around anyway, but they didn't disqualify me."

Insider previously reached out to "American Idol" representatives for comment and did not hear back.

Although recent "Idol" stars, like Poppe, told Insider they were encouraged to use social media to promote the show, early contestants said they couldn't use their platforms for the three months of the show.

"We couldn't handle our social media," said season-six runner-up Blake Lewis.

At the time, social media mostly consisted of MySpace, YouTube, and Facebook, but Lewis said it was still quite the blow as he was trying to make a name for himself online.

"I'm like, 'How am I supposed to have a fan base after this?' It's insane," Lewis said.

Another season-six finalist, Melinda Doolittle, said the social-media blackout meant "starting from the ground up" when the show ended.

"Now I think they figured out, let's actually push social media, let's tag these kids. Let's get them in it," Doolittle told Insider.

Representatives for "American Idol" did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

When season-three runner-up Diana DeGarmo competed on "Idol," she said she wasn't just barred from social media but the internet entirely.

"They didn't even have a computer at the house because of people reading blogs and chat rooms the seasons before it, and it had caused a lot of mental turmoil like we all eventually experienced," she told Insider.

DeGarmo, who was still in high school at the time, said that the lack of internet access made it "a little hard for schoolwork."

Representatives for "American Idol" did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

Although many competitors gave up job offers and schooling to compete on the show, season-18 finalists also had to contend with the added stress of the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in the US.

Just Sam was in the middle of filming when the pandemic hit, which left her stranded on the opposite end of the country from her family in New York City.

"I was very worried about them," she said. "I did not want to risk flying back."

Just Sam said she was the only contestant who stayed in Hollywood with "Idol" when her fellow competitors went home to continue competing virtually.

"I was like, 'What if I get on this plane and I catch it?'" Just Sam told Insider, explaining that she was also monitoring her own preexisting health issues with her doctor.

At the end of season 18, she was crowned the winner after months in isolation.

"It was rough. Months without sleeping in my own bed," Just Sam said, adding that it was also "such a blessing."