Friends: Idle Gossip Paints Unfamiliar Picture Of Antonella Barba

The Newark Star-Ledger reports friends of Antonella Barba are painting a much different picture of the ‘American Idol’ semi-finalist than racy images of the 20-year-old beauty on the internet suggest. “She was probably one of the smartest people at Red Bank Catholic,” said Sherry Meneyhert, one of Barba’s high school friends and now a junior at Wagner College on Staten Island. “She’s not at all like what you might think. It’s horrible to hear the things people are saying about her.” Meneyhert said Barba was a gifted student who scored “in the 1,400s” out of 1,600 on the SATs. She took AP Calculus. She pulled straight A’s, or close to it. She was on the honor roll. And Jason Alberto, one of Antonella’s high school friends, says the Barbas are known for anything in Point Pleasant, it’s for being “very Catholic.” He explained, “On Ash Wednesday, everyone at Red Bank Catholic goes to mass and gets the cross put on their forehead. Probably 99 percent of the kids wipe it off as soon as they get out. Antonella walked around with it on her forehead all day.”