American Idol: From 13 to 12, plus Diddy and Adam Lambert

Here is tonight’s recap of American Idol, including who was eliminated tonight, so stop reading if you are on the West Coast and don’t want to know!

Ryan started the show with a few announcements – Diddy Dirty Money (who performed Coming Home featuring Skylar Grey) and Adam Lambert (who sang an acoustic version of Aftermath) would be taking the stage tonight; a whopping 30,000,000 votes came in this week; and the judges, again this season, will have one save to use until the top 5. Will they be using it tonight?

Only twelve Idols graced the stage for the group number which was a Michael Jackson tribute. Unfortunately, Casey was sick and in the hospital again this time with stomach bleeding which may be caused by stress. (Heal quick Casey!)

We got a tour of this year’s American Idol house. It was ENORMOUS! It seems that the girls have one huge room and the boys have their own huge room. They are also spoiled with a fully stocked refrigerator, a grand piano, a pool table, a pool, and the list goes on and on and on…  I was a little jealous, until I remembered that some of these contestants are teens, and well, I have my own! No need to add any!

As in previous season, the contestants starred in their own Ford Focus commercial and to give them a taste of the Hollywood lifestyle, they were treated to the Little Red Riding Hood movie premiere, none of which seemed that thrilled with the movie. Oh well.

Jacob, Karen and Stefano were called to the center stage first. Jacob felt like he messed up on his performance, but was able to pull it back together. Karen felt like there were some technical difficulties when she was on stage because she couldn’t hear herself, but she promised that she will do better next time. Stefano felt like he was able to show another side of himself and is blessed to be there. Ryan got their hopes up by saying “You’re all safe this evening” Then paused and said, “Except Karen. Karen is in the bottom three.” NOT nice Ryan. In fact, many fans in the forum, on Facebook AND on Twitter wanted to do things to you that, well, things I can’t say here.

Lauren, Ashton, and Haley up next – Lauren felt like the judges criticisms of her Shania Twain song were fair and that she had a bad performance. Since Lauren was getting emotional, Ryan immediately announced that she was safe. Ashton and Haley were both in the bottom three.

Instead of allowing all of the contestants to have a voice at center stage, Ryan said that everyone who wasn’t called to the center of the stage was safe. The group seemed stunned and Ryan had to encourage them to applaud for themselves. It was quite an interesting way to go about it I guess, although you would think everyone would have to have their moment to sweat it out.

We had a couple of mixed review performances tonight. Adam Lambert, subdued and without make-up went acoustic, and Diddy sang with Skylar Grey, who many will remember from her performance on the Grammy’s with Eminem, and of course a spotlight of one of the Yak’s Melodic Mondays! We also got to hear the new “kick off” tune for American Idol this year, “Don’t You Forget About Me” sung by former Idol David Cook.

On to the bottom three, Ryan wasted no time declaring that Karen was safe this week, as was Haley. Ashton had the least amount of votes and needed to sing to try to convince the judges to use the save. Ashton’s final song was the same Diana Ross song that she sang last night, and fans of the show were none too pleased. Many thought it was even worse than last nights performance. The judges decided not to use the save on her and Ashton was the first of the Top 13 to be eliminated from American Idol 2011.

I’m thinking Idol had a TON of filler tonight for their first elimination show, with two performances, the commercial, the musical number, that they rushed the results a bit. Oh well. An elimination show being an hour long was way too long for many anyway.

What did you think? Did Ashton deserve to go? Was your favorite in the bottom three? Let us know below, then come join us in the FORUM where we are discussing all things Idol!