American Idol Season 3 Recap
The third season of American Idol premiered on January 19,
2004. The winner of this season of American Idol was Fantasia
Barrino, later known professionally as simply "Fantasia,"
and the runner-up was Diana Degarmo. This was also the season
that Golden Globe Award-winning and Academy Award-winning
actress Jennifer Hudson was discovered.
The early part of the season introduced William Hung, a UC
Berkeley student, who received widespread attention following
his off-key rendition of Ricky Martin's "She Bangs."
His performance, as well as his positive attitude facing Simon's
criticisms (a stark contrast to other contestants' confrontational,
angry reactions), landed him a record deal with Koch Entertainment
and made him over $500,000 in record sales. He also starred
in a Cingular Wireless commercial with host Ryan Seacrest.
During the season, controversy over the legitimacy of the
contest increased as rocker Jon Peter Lewis and young crooner
John Stevens stayed afloat while others were unexpectedly
eliminated. Jasmine Trias, despite negative comments from
Simon Cowell over her later performances, survived elimination
and took the third spot over Latoya London. Trias later released
a CD and attracted fans in her home state of Hawaii, the Philippines,
Singapore, Guam and other South East Asian countries. The
third season was also shown in Australia on Network Ten about
half a week after episodes were shown in the U.S.
After a nationwide vote of more than 65 million votes in
total - more than the first two seasons combined - Fantasia
Barrino won the American Idol title over runner-up Diana DeGarmo.
She released her first single in June 2004 on the RCA record
label. The single included "I Believe" – cowritten
by former Idol contestant Tamyra Gray (who also sang backup)
– which Fantasia performed on the finale of Idol, the
Aretha Franklin hit "Chain of Fools" (released before
on an American Idol compilation), and her signature version
of "Summertime". The single entered the Billboard
Hot 100 at #1, making Fantasia the first artist in the history
of Billboard to debut at number one with their first single.[9][10]
The song remained at the number one for one week (it topped
the sales chart for 11 weeks in the US and 10 weeks in Canada).
Fantasia's CD, I Believe, went on to become the top selling
single of 2004 in the U.S and has since been certified double
platinum by the CRIA and received 3 Billboard Music Awards.
In 2006, she received 4 Grammy nominations for her double
platinum debut album Free Yourself. Read more about American
Idol Season 3
American
Idol Official Site
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