David Archuleta is opening up about his “traumatic” time on “American Idol”.
The now 30-year-old starred on season seven of the show back in 2008, with him ending up coming in second place to David Cook.
Archuleta, who auditioned for the show at age just 16, told Variety of his experience: “I felt so disconnected from everything.
“Like, 13 years later, I’m piecing together what actually was going on. But it’s still a process because I still don’t understand why people were so into it.”
The musician went on, “I think I was just in protection mode the whole time. If anything, I was putting a wall between me and everyone else.”
Before “Idol”, Archuleta had starred on “The Jenny Jones Show” at age 11 and “Star Search” at age 13.
Archuleta called his time on “Idol” “miserable” and “traumatic,” telling the publication how most of his fellow finalists had some kind of nervous breakdown at some point during the season.
He added, “I get afraid to blame things on ‘American Idol’, because something in me is programmed to say, ‘I have to be grateful, because where would I be without it?’ But at the same time, I’ve talked to other ‘American Idol’ contestants about how we all have trust issues.
“Like: ‘You can’t trust anyone anymore, not even your own family.’ That’s what we were told. It was like some weird grooming process, from the very first audition, the way that they were speaking to us, kind of like, ‘You’re powerless little bugs. If you step out of line, then you’re out of here, and you’re going to lose this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.’”
Former “Idol” executive producer Nigel Lythgoe told Variety of Archuleta: “I had a wonderful time working with David and was totally unaware of his grievances. I’m so sorry he has a bad recollection of his experiences on the show. He did so well in the competition, and his battle with David Cook provided an extremely exciting finale.”
During the interview, Archuleta also spoke about being religious and a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, insisting he didn’t understand on “Idol” why older male fans kept yelling at him to come out already or why girls were screaming at him.
The singer, who revealed in June that he is somewhere on “a spectrum of bisexuality,” told Variety of what being gay meant as the second oldest of five siblings in a Mormon family: “My parents never talked to me about puberty.
“I didn’t know what wet dreams were. I didn’t know what arousals were. I didn’t know that hair was going to be growing in parts of my body. All that was foreign to me. I didn’t know. And so I was freaking out.”
