American Idol (season 2)

Auditions were held in the fall of 2002 in the following cities:[4]

The number of auditioners increased significantly after the success of the first season,[14][15] and arenas and stadiums started to be used to hold the first auditions from this season onwards when the Rose Bowl in Pasadena was used this season instead of the hotel originally planned.[5][16] Around 70,000 attended the auditions this season and 234 were selected to proceed on to the Hollywood round. Radio DJ Angie Martinez was originally signed up as a fourth judge,[17] but quit after a few days, stating that "it became too uncomfortable for me to tell someone else to give up on their dream".[18] Paula Abdul was absent from the Atlanta audition.

At the Miami auditions, one failed auditioner was Edgar Nova who,[19] after being rejected, tried to get back again and had to be escorted off the premise. Nova then auditioned in Los Angeles, but with a different hairstyle to avoid recognition, and was again unsuccessful.

Another auditioner named Bryan Washington auditioned in Atlanta, Georgia, and made it to Hollywood, but did not make it into the top 32. He was also overweight at the time of his American Idol audition, and later became a contestant on The Biggest Loser (Season 4.)

Auditioner Amber Riley was rejected by producers and did not get to audition for the judges,[20] but later went on to co-star on the television series Glee as Mercedes Jones.

The contestants performed in a series of rounds and the number of contestants trimmed was in each round. In the first round, the 234 contestants performed a song, after which 114 of them were eliminated. In the second round, the remaining 120 contestants were asked to compose a melody for one of five sets of lyrics, and 40 more were cut. In the third round, the contestants were separated by gender and performed in small groups. The remaining 48 boys chose from The Carpenters' "Superstar", Seal's "Kiss from a Rose", and Barry Manilow's "Tryin' to Get the Feeling Again", while the remaining 32 girls chose from Melissa Manchester's "Don't Cry Out Loud", Freda Payne's "Band of Gold", and Dionne Warwick's "You'll Never Get to Heaven (If You Break My Heart)". During his group's performance, Corey Clark, who would later claim a relationship with Paula Abdul, sang to Paula directly and kissed her hand.

In the last round, each of the remaining 48 contestants performed solo. After their performances, the contestants were then divided into three groups of sixteen and placed in separate rooms. One group was eliminated, and 32 contestants proceeded on to the semi-final rounds.

The format changed slightly in Season 2; instead of three groups of ten, the semi-finalists were grouped into four groups of eight. The singers performed solo in a new improved stage with piano accompaniment by Michael Orland, and the performance pre-taped. There were no live audience although family members of contestants were present in the Red Room where the contestants were placed.

The results of the public vote were announced live the next day. From each group, two were selected to proceed on to the top 12, and those selected reprised their performance in the result show. Nine of those who failed at any of previous stages (including the Hollywood rounds and the initial regional auditions) were given one more chance to perform again in the wild-card show. Each of the three judges put one contestant from the wild-card group through to the top 12, with the final one selected by the public vote.

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In this season, guests were introduced as celebrity judges, some of whom who may also act as a mentor in for the week they were on.

On March 31, 2003, during what would it be Top 9, it was announced that Corey Clark had been disqualified.

In most weeks the bottom vote-getter performed his or her song again after their elimination was announced, but at Top 5 and Top 8 both the bottom 2 vote-getters performed their song.

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Back - Joshua Gracin, Clay Aiken, Kimberly Caldwell, Kimberley Locke, Charles Grigsby, Carmen Rusmusen, Trenyce, Ruben Studdard
Seated - Julia DeMato, Corey Clark, Vanessa Olivarez, Rickey Smith

• Ruben Studdard (born September 12, 1978 in Frankfurt, Germany, 24 years old at the time of the show) is from Birmingham, Alabama and auditioned in Nashville, Tennessee with Stevie Wonder's "Ribbon in the Sky".
• Clay Aiken (born November 30, 1978 in Raleigh, North Carolina, 24 years old at the time of the show) auditioned in Atlanta, Georgia with Heatwave's "Always and Forever". He studied at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where he graduated with a degree in special education.
• Kimberley Locke (born January 3, 1978 in Hartsville, Tennessee, 25 at the time of the show) is from Nashville, Tennessee where she auditioned with Judy Garland's "Over the Rainbow".
• Joshua Gracin (born October 18, 1980 in Westland, Michigan, 22 years old at the time of the show) is from Oceanside, California, where he was stationed while serving in the Marine Corps. He auditioned in Los Angeles with O-Town's "All or Nothing".
• Trenyce (born March 31, 1980 in Memphis, Tennessee, 22 years old at the start of the season) is from Bartlett, Tennessee and auditioned in Nashville with Whitney Houston's "I Learned from the Best". She turned down a record deal at 14 and she auditioned using her full name, LaShundra "Trenyce" Cobbins.
• Carmen Rasmusen (born March 25, 1985, in Edmonton, Alberta in Canada, 17 at the start of the season) is from Bountiful, Utah and auditioned in Los Angeles. She did not make the semi-final initially but was brought back for the wild card show and put through to the final.
• Kimberly Caldwell (born February 25, 1982 in Katy, Texas, 20 at the start of the season) – Prior to American Idol, she had appeared on Star Search, where she won five times as a junior vocalist, and in Popstars: USA.
• Rickey Smith (May 10, 1979 - May 6, 2016, born in Keene, Texas, 23 at the time of the show) auditioned in Nashville with Brian McKnight's "One Last Cry". He worked as a teacher before the show. Smith was killed in a car crash on May 6, 2016, making him the second American Idol finalist to die after seventh season finalist, Michael Johns.[23]
• Corey Clark (born July 13, 1980 in San Bernardino, California, 22 at the time of the show) is from San Bernardino, California, and auditioned in Nashville with Jackson 5's "Never Can Say Goodbye". He was disqualified hours after the website The Smoking Gun revealed his misdemeanor charges of battery and resisting arrest on March 31, 2003.[24]
• Julia DeMato (born March 7, 1979 in Danbury, Connecticut, 23 at the start of the show) is from Brookfield, Connecticut and auditioned with Toni Braxton's Un-Break My Heart.
• Charles Grigsby (born September 15, 1978 in Oberlin, Ohio, 24 at the time of the show) auditioned in Detroit.
• Vanessa Olivarez (born April 7, 1981, 21 at the time of the show) is from Atlanta, Georgia and auditioned in Atlanta with Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody".

The finale vote had been controversial due to the smallness of the margin. Ryan Seacrest also added fuel by mistakenly announcing the difference in vote count first as 13,000, then 1,335, but eventually revealed later to be around 130,000.[25] There was much discussion in the communication industry about the phone system being overloaded, and that more than 150 million votes were dropped, making the voting results suspect.[26] In an interview prior to the start of the fifth season, executive producer Nigel Lythgoe revealed that Aiken had led the fan voting from the wild card week onward until the finale.[27]

There was controversy when contestant Frenchie Davis was disqualified from the competition after topless photos of her surfaced on the Internet. Shortly afterwards, she landed a role in the Broadway musical Rent.[28]

Corey Clark was also disqualified from the show because, according to the Idol producers, Clark had a police record he had not disclosed to the show. However, in 2005, contestant Corey Clark alleged in an interview on ABC's Primetime Live and in a book, They Told Me to Tell the Truth, So... The Sex, Lies and Paulatics of One of America's Idols, that he and judge Paula Abdul had an affair while he was on the show and that this contributed to his removal.[29] Clark also alleged that Abdul gave him preferential treatment on the show and tips on song choice. A subsequent investigation by an independent counsel hired by Fox "could not corroborate the evidence or allegations provided by Mr. Clark or any witnesses".[30] Paula Abdul was therefore considered exonerated but an "enhanced non-fraternization policy" was put in place after the investigation.[30]

Trenyce was also found to have been arrested on felony theft charge;[31] however, Nigel Lythgoe considered her offense to be minor and one which she has been honest about, therefore "warranted no concern regarding her participation in the show."[32]

During the Top 10, a problem with the telephone system resulted in some votes not being registered for Julia DeMato; however, Fox insisted that the mistake would not have made any difference in Julia DeMato being voted off.[32]

During the course of the contest, Studdard became known for wearing 205 Flava jerseys representing his area code; when asked about them early in the season, Studdard told Seacrest that he was "just representing 205". Shortly after the end of the contest, Studdard sued 205 Flava, Inc. for $2 Million dollars for using his image for promotional purposes. 205 Flava responded by alleging that Studdard had accepted over $10,000 in return for wearing 205 shirts, and produced eight cashed checks to validate their claim. The allegations, if true, were a clear violation of the American Idol rules.[33] The lawsuit was settled out of court.[34]

Some questions were raised about the participation of Joshua Gracin, who was then in the Marine Corps, in American idol during the time of the Iraq War.[35] He later missed both the finale performance night as well as the Idol tour that year after being recalled to duty by the Marines.[36]

Some speculation about Vanessa Olivarez' dismissal and treatment by American Idol surfaced in 2007.[37] During the show, Olivarez took part in a scripted joke where, after Seacrest had asked Olivarez to read a cue card taking the viewers to a commercial, Olivarez would reply by saying, "Ryan, I'm a real artist, not a performing monkey like you, so why don't you read your own script?"[38] However, viewers booed, and Olivarez was voted off afterwards, a result of what some thought to be negative public perception of her due to the joke. It was suggested that she was deliberately ousted because she had come out as a lesbian to other contestants.[39] She had also posed nude for an ad campaign for the animal rights group PETA after she was voted off.[40] Olivarez was the only finalist omitted from the Season 2 CD, and she was not chosen for the tour after Joshua Gracin was recalled to the Marines.[41]

The number of average viewers per episode this season was 21.7 million, an increase of 71% over season 1.[42] Its Wednesday episodes finished as the third most-watched show of the year averaging 21.93 million, and the Tuesday episodes fifth at 21.56 million.[43] The show ranked second in the coveted 18/49 demographic for the 2002-2003 season.[44] This season's finale episode still ranks as the most-watched single episode in Idol history at 38.1 million, the finale night itself averaged 33.7 million when the pre-show special is taken into consideration. The show also helped Fox become the season's number three network in total viewers for the first time.[45]

A couple of specials were aired later in the year - From Justin To Kelly: The Rise of Two American Idols on June 20, 2003, and American Idol: Christmas Songs on November 25, 2003, the latter of which was ranked number 30 with total viewer number of 10.9 million,[64] and number 28 in the 18/49 demo with a 4.1 rating.

• Official American Idol Contestants Website
• American Idol (Season 2) at IMDb

• American Idol
• American Idols LIVE! Tour 2003