Seems as if the male contestants on American Idol can breathe a collective sigh of relief and feel safe..at least for a little while because for the second week in a row, the bottom three contestants during elimination night were all female.
Thursday night, it was the 21-year-old Karen Rodriguez from New York who received the fewest fan votes and was sent packing.
She did a great job on her last song with an English and Spanish rendition of Mariah Carey’s Hero but the performance was not strong enough to persuade all three judges to unanimously use the season’s one-time save on her. Judge Randy Jackson delivered the bad news: “This is not unanimous. The judges here are not going to use the save tonight.”
Karen, a student at the esteemed Berklee College of Music, was the last remaining contestant who got on the show via Idol‘s new online audition system on Myspace.
“It’s like I’ve been on this journey for such a long time now, and this is my last opportunity,” Rodriguez said right before singing her last song. “I’m trying not to cry.”
Who rounded out the bottom three? It was Haley Reinhart and Naima Adedapo.