Last week’s thread transferred into a discussion of Antonella Barba’s photos on the web, so I thought I would start up this week’s on that topic.
Will Fox pull her from the competition? A friend of mine thinks she will be booted, and stated:
I was wondering what the small print is on the documents the contestants sign. Clealry This lass is guilty of bad judgement, but it is not illegal to give oral sex or have provocative photos shot of you. There is also a question of underage drinking, but I don’t see the big deal about her behavior. If Fox is going to boot her, I suppose it will have to be on legal grounds or for violations of some clause or another.
Since “Vote for the Worst” has her listed, if Fox does not give her the axe, she will likely be around for awhile.
Ugh. I didn’t comment on it in the old thread because I can’t decide if I think she’ll get the boot or not. Idol producers seem to pick and choose which contestants they keep and which they ditch in situations like this with very little logic involved. They kick some off the show, but keep others.
Personally, I hope she goes away. This “Girls Gone Wild” fad this country is going through makes me sick. The girls who engage in this type of behavior apparently put no thought into their future. I personally hope Antonella gets shown the door and sends a message to teen and high school aged girls that this is not how the American Idol behaves.
I wonder. . . does anyone remember at what point Frenchie was booted? It could mess with their system now that the viewer voting has started. Although I guess they could boot her and vote off only one other girl.
Or they can keep her and I can keep saying how much she both sucks and blows.
I briefly visited the site with the photos, and I recall they had the “proof that it’s not her” earlobe-comparison there labeled as having been sent to them by American Idol. If that’s the case, it suggests that AI believes (or believed) that the oral sex photos are not of her. I find the issue too unclear to predict whether or not they’ll kick her off, but I’m dying to see if they mention the photos in any way.
At VFTW the consensus seems to be that the BJ pics are not her: http://www. votefortheworst.com/ node /144 (take out the space to view - not exactly NSFW, but you might want to wait til you get home to see.)
There are the real pictures of her flashing cooter at the WWII Memorial in DC and in UNC Tarheel gear, and the toilet one, and the various tits out shots from spring break or something. She definitely has an exhibitionist flair. But in this day and age, any publicity is good publicity, and I’m sure TPTB at 19E and Fox are pleased that the nation’s attention is on their show.
She’s of marginal talent - clearly not close to the final 12 quality, so I guess this will be a referendum on whether being accused of being a ho but then being vindicated translates into support. I never vote, so I don’t care what happens. I just feel badly for the people she beat out that kept their noses clean and can sing better. This kind of stuff basically contradicts everything we tell our kids - stay out of trouble, use good judgment, and good things will happen. In Antonella’s example, we see that getting into trouble and using poor judgment also leads to good things.
Which is why the idea of these people serving as role models is laughable. A lot of kids look up to the Idol contestants, and I guess some of them might consider flashing their bits for a camera - after all, Antonella did it, and she still got on Idol…
The craw in my neck is how Frenchie was dealt with. However they deal with it, Idol has a history of booting contestants of color for criminal activities or lapses in judgment. We can certainly argue that Antonella’s situation is different in any number of ways, but the bottom line might appear to the public - which I should mention is becoming less White by the day - is that there is a double standard for contestants of color when compared to White contestants. If they boot Antonella this issue is abated. If they don’t and they either allow her to continue, or she gets booted through a lack of votes, that perception just grows.
Compounding this is the fact that Jennifer Hudson just won an Oscar. She’s officially eclipsed AI, and she is an AI reject. Remember Elton John getting het up about her getting the boot and calling the show racist? If the producers don’t put their heads together about this, AI is going to lose some of the stardust it’s had over the years.
Frenchie was booted before anyone ever got to vote for her – one day, she was in the groups, and then the next day she wasn’t. They never really talked about it, or explained it, or anything. Just: when you looked on the website on, say, Sunday who see was going to be on that week, Frenchie’s picture was up, but then by Monday morning, she was gone, without a trace, and any thread about her on the Idol message boards were poof gone. She was replaced by this girl Juanita Barber who was awful and sang some song about “Who Will Think of the Children?” and gave Simon attitude when he told her that she was a talentless hack (paraphrased).
(This was back before there was a gradual vote-down to the Top 12, when one group of 8 sang each week for 3 weeks and the top 2 vote-getters from each group got through, and then there was also a “wild-card” week when each judge got to put through a contestant of their choice (e.g., “Carmen-the-Goat-Girl”) and the “wild-card” was voted in by the audience (e.g., Clay) – all in all, a much more complicated system than what we have now, and also bad, because it happened more than once that all 8 of one group were better than the top 2 of another. Anyway …)
Sorry, slightly off-topic. Anyway, yes, getting rid of Antonella could hypothetically mess up the “viewer voting” system, but there are always allegations that something is “wrong” and the contests are “rigged” anyway. If they claimed Antonella had one of the lowest vote totals of the night, how could anyone prove she didn’t? I’m not advocating this – I think they should address the issue in some way, acknowledge it at least, whatever they decide – but I’m sure they’ve developed an “exit strategy” of some kind.
That’s probably the most likely thing to happen if they do decide to get rid of her. At this point, it’s pretty believable that Antonella will get the fewest votes anyhow. It also protects the producers from any potential backlash like with Frenchie.
I don’t want to speak for Hippy Hollow, but I think he’s referring to the fact that black contestants such as Corey Clark, Frenchie, and those twins from last year were all kicked off the show because of various offenses from criminal records to posing in lingerie. Meanwhile, white contestants Bo Bice and Scott Savol were allowed to stay even though they had some stuff in their pasts too. On the other hand, wasn’t Trenyce allowed to stay even though she had a theft charge on her record?
I think it’s probably had more to do with the seriousness of the offense and whether the contestant notified the producers about it right away. However, if Antonella is allowed to stay when Frenchie was kicked off for basically the same thing (posing for naughty pictures but not in the nude), it could probably be argued that Frenchie was treated unfairly because she is black (or Antonella favored because she is not). Just my opinion.
Okay, well I found some information on an old Wikipedia article that had info on both Bo Bice and Taylor Hicks having been arrested for cocaine and marijuana possession. The article no longer has that info. However, I found this (which is pretty much an exact copy of the old wiki article).
I’m working from (quite possibly faulty) memory here, but I don’t recall the twins’ arrest or any other legal matter being mentioned on the show itself. Announcements like that were made off-air, in press releases or in interviews. So I suspect if the Idol producers had meant to eliminate Antonella for rules/policy violations, we would have heard about it by now and won’t have any great revelation tonight.
IMHO, if Idol stated they eliminated Frenchie for violating some kind of “moral” policy for posing in legitimate lingerie catalog pictures, Antonella should be out on her ass for her indecent public exposure pics. Mind you, I’ve got nothing personal against either girl’s acts (assuming everyone was of age). It’s their bodies, let them do as they please. I’d just like to see the Idol producers have some semblance of even-handedness when enforcing policy.
My husband just called and said a co-worker told him Antonella has been dismissed. But I googled and found nothing to that effect. Don’t see anything to that effect on idolforums.com either. So co-worker was probably talking out his @55.
Not going to speculate about whether the BJ pictures are really her. First it was not her because the ears did not match the ear in her yearbook picture. Then it was her because the birthmarks did match the birthmarks in her AI photos. Then it was not her because the stills were provably excerpts from a porn video. I figured in another 12 hours, it would be revealed that the BJ photos were indeed from a porn video…but it was her in the video.
And only in that case would it be comparable to Frenchie. Frenchie got paid for her topless photos. So far, it appears that Ant… has not been paid for any of her photos. So, not the same situation.
Also, Ant…'s BFF Amanda has been interviewed by the Newark Star-Ledger and claims, “Ant… is the least slutty person I know.” Wonder what kind of people she hangs out with, then!