Jessica Shaw of Entertainment Weekly graded the ‘American Idol’ performances last night and according to her marks, once again Nikki McKibbin is the most likely to get the boot. Shaw writes, “The luckiest girl on television (make that the luckiest girl in America) kicked off the show with Stevie Nicks’ ‘Edge of Seventeen’…and that could have been great, if only she’d sounded 1/100th as good as Stevie and not like her usual off-key self.” Shaw gave the highest marks to Justin Guarini’s pair of performances, just ahead of Kelly Clarkson. Read more.

Tonight’s Entertainment Tonight will have the show ‘American Idol’ finalist Nikki McKibbin making a homecoming in Texas. Flashbulbs and cameras followed Nikki on her whirlwind tour of Dallas and surrounding areas, as fans got to see the 23-year-old sign autographs, pose for pictures and talk to her supporters, and talk to callers on a local radio station.

Jessica Shaw gave her weekly review of ‘American Idol’ and took the chance to blast several contestants, primarily the horrific performance of Nikki McKibbin, which somehow wasn’t bad enough to get booted from the show Wednesday. Shaw said, “However horrible the show was for the first 50 minutes Tuesday night, nothing could have prepared us for the unbelievably off-key ‘Always Something There to Remind Me’ sung by the deal-with-the-devil contestant Nikki. I felt so sorry for her Living Doll-lookalike son, Tristen, who had to watch his mother butcher an already mediocre song. Even Burt [Bacharach]
knew she was hideous when he said she’d do ‘fine’ with the song. Even he couldn’t muster up excitement about Ms. Tongue Pierce singing his lyrics.” Read more.

‘American Idol’ finalist Nikki MicKibbin tells US Weekly that she was a rebel rocker in high-school, but also a cheerleader. “I was a cheerleader whom none of the other cheerleaders liked,” she admits. “I didn’t go for the whole, ‘We don’t talk to people, ’cause they’re not in our clique.” I don’t see the point in telling somebody that they aren’t good enough to talk to you because they don’t dress well or wear makeup the right way.”