According to a posting at the Clay Aiken community on LiveJournal.com, the ‘American Idol’ finalist was not at fault for missing lines in ‘Vincent’. A regular named Dean called the Drex morning show on 103.5 Kiss FM in Chicago and verified a story indicating that 25 minutes before Clay was going to perform, when he was in hair and makeup backstage, the producers told him that the rehearsal was under and they needed to extend the program. They told him he would need to change the arrangment and add an extra verse to prolong the show. He didn’t have time to rehearse this change. The judges had already watched the dress rehearsal so they didn’t know what happened and obviously didn’t notice the change in the song. Dean was extremely upset over the move. Drex, who is not a Clay fan and calls him ‘Tinkerbell’, was even upset that Fox would do something like that. Nigel, the producer, explained the situation to the audience during the commercial break, but us watching were never informed.

Billy Masters of Filth2go.com weighed in after Clay Aiken was voted on to the show’s final 12. “It’s starting – I’m getting American Idol fever,” he admitted. “This last week, I sat on the edge of my chair (as I’m sure most of you did), wondering if ‘Gay Clay’ was gonna make it to the finals. As the judges made their decisions – not for our boy – I got more and more concerned. What I knew, however, was that the contestant who got the most calls from the public was taken out of the pool of talent for the judges to select from. So, would Clay make it? Indeed, he was the public’s choice – and the one person the judges agreed belongs in the finals. And how sweet was it for the folks at FOX to focus in on his ‘very special friend’, who had tears in his eyes while Clay sang? Brava!”