American Snow Job
The Selling and Marketing of Kellie Pickler
Minx – noun – (mingks) – a seductive woman who uses her sex appeal to exploit men.
When Simon Cowell makes his mind up about a contestant, that’s pretty much the way it’s going to be. He is seldom if ever wrong. So when Cowell proclaims on more than one occasion that Taylor, Chris and Kellie Pickler will be in the top three, you can pretty much take it to the bank. But did we really need Simon to tell us something many viewers have already figured out for themselves?
Since “Pick Pickler’s” first appearance on Idol, her hard luck story of “My daddy’s in jail, my mommy left me when I was two, and I had to live with my grandparents” has not only been played to the ultimate hilt by Idol, but has been picked up and replayed time and time again in the newspaper tabloids, the TV tabloids, and is plastered on just about any web site you come across when you Google the name “Kellie Pickler.”
A good portion of Idol viewers, including yours truly, bought it all hook line and sinker at the beginning, but after hearing about her poor family life and her sad sack story for what seemed to be the millionth time, I was screaming, “enough already!” And it would seem that there is a growing number of Idol fans who feel the same way.
Kellie hasn’t pimped that particular story on the show a great deal over the last few weeks, but she doesn’t have to now that she’s got Fox, Idol, and every entertainment show in the country doing it for her. Instead she has moved on to the “I’m just a poor dumb ignorant and naïve country girl from leetle ol’ Albemarle” shtick instead, and it seems as if the Idol producers are pushing her every step of the way. That too was okay the first couple of times. One certainly can understand that a person might not know what calamari is, especially in “leetle ol’ Albemarle” and I’ll be the first to admit that in the beginning I may have gotten more than a chuckle out of it. I might even give her the benefit of the doubt on the word minx, but just barely. After a while though, repetition can’t help but breed suspicion.
Kellie did actually graduate from North Stanly High School, didn’t she? And they do teach vocabulary and literature in the Stanly County school system don’t they? Hopefully, Kellie Pickler is not indicative of what the education system in North Carolina is churning out because if it is folks, you’re not getting a whole lot for your tax dollars.
Maybe they don’t have televisions in Albemarle Land so it would only be natural that Kellie wouldn’t know about the outside world, or had never seen a dog with a sweater before. Or maybe Albemarle is really just like the town in the movie Pleasantville, where Main Street ends and then begins where it ends, and life is just beautiful all the time. Oh wait, she must have heard of American Idol. Well, maybe the reception is poor.
After calamari and minx, you would have thought that was more than enough of that shtick also. But no because every time that Kellie takes center stage it’s as if the little mouse that powers the wheel in her head is rapidly churning like it’s been pumped with the latest steroids to help Kellie decide which dumb mispronounced word or misunderstood definition she can blurt out for the amusement of all of those who like their Southern blondes, naïve, dumb, and as air headed as Paris Hilton, Jessica Simpson, and Britney Spears on their best days or even God help us, Kelly Bundy.
The problem is, that po’ little ol’ mouse in the wheel in her head must have finally collapsed from working overtime because Kelly has taken to falling back on recycled material from previous weeks.
“I got new shoes; I don’t have tarantulas on my eyelids no more. I’m a mink coat,” tee hee tee hee tee hee. Yes, you can go get out the barf bag now.
Probably the first time I smelled a rat was on Stevie Wonder night. In the early clips when the Idols met Stevie Wonder, Kellie’s eyes filled with tears as if she had just been crowned Corn Festival Queen in Hooterville. Later we found out she was clueless as to who Stevie Wonder was and knew nothing about his music. But maybe I misjudge her. Maybe she was crying because she actually had to sing something with a higher degree of difficult than Row Row Row Your Boat. Or then again, since she didn’t know who he was, maybe she was upset that he was blind. I half expected her to ask him how he became blind and how long had he suffered with this particular affliction until I realized the word affliction may not be in her vocabulary. Have you asked her about that one yet, Ryan?
When I first wrote about her performance of “Blame it on the Sun” during Stevie Wonder week, I said it looked like she had given up on it halfway through. I was wrong. It’s apparent that she never had any intention of giving it much of an effort, and decided her so called charm would bail her out as it always does, and that she could vamp Simon into another evening of submission. And it did. The judges helped her along with the usual excuses that it wasn’t her type of song, and Kellie threw in a few of her own excuses just for good measure: “I wasn’t used to the eyelashes, I was afraid the dress would fall off, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” tee hee tee hee tee hee. And although it was her worst performance yet, her other vocals haven’t been anything the rooster in her grandfather’s barn could crow about on any particular evening. As I have mentioned so many times though, when you’re one of the contestants that 19 Entertainment Executives are salivating over with the thought of putting you on a CD, in a low cut blouse it does have its advantages.
As I look back at Kellie's past performances, none have been memorable, and only one or two could be considered passable. Yet viewers and board posters alike have practically memorized the word’s “calamari, minx, and tarantula.” It should come as no surprise that seldom if ever, have the judges actually critiqued Kellie’s vocals. It’s “oh you’re just so darn cute and likable” and “people like you.” By comparison, when Ayla Brown did her rendition of “Unwritten” the critiques wasn’t of her vocals, or how she performed the song, it was “the song wasn’t difficult enough to showcase your vocals.”
By comparison, week after week Kellie has taken the easiest path possible, and has yet to hear one word of criticism for doing so, or do a song that would challenge her vocal chords beyond gargling Listerine in the morning. Likewise, when Cowell offhandedly says he likes Kellie better than Carrie when she (Kellie) couldn’t match one tenth of Carrie’s vocal ability on her best day, you know you are being sold a bill of goods. And when you give one of the worst performances of anybody during the season, such as Kellie did with “Blame it on the Sun” and the criticism is so mild and you still don’t drop to the bottom of the Idol barrel, you know they want you in it for the long haul.
It certainly didn’t take long for the web site Vote for the Worst to catch on. For those very few of you who don’t know, Vote for the Worst is a web site that promotes the fact that we should all vote for the worst contestant, keep them on the show as long as possible to teach Fox some kind of morality lesson about their secretive vote totals, shameless promoting of certain contestants, and their handy knack for putting weak performers through to Hollywood simply for entertainment value that has nothing to do with ability.
At first I was puzzled by this pick, simply because in the early stages, it has seemed as if Kellie was one of the favorites to win. But after giving it some thought, I understand it. When you lump all the contestants together at this stage of the game, it would be relatively easy to surmise that indeed Kellie is the worst of the lot, at least in the vocal department. I suppose one could make the case that Bucky is, but when Bucky is singing the right songs there’s nothing much wrong with his vocals at all. Then there is one other element where Bucky excels that Kellie does not, that being honesty. Bucky is genuine. What you see is what you get. It would now appear that Kellie is as about as genuine as a packet of nutra-sweet.
As Vote for the Worst pointed out in this cached article (the article will be reposted on March 26th with new information), her claim to have never sung in front of a big audience before would make one believe she walked straight out of the cow pasture and onto the stage of American Idol. She has in fact sang at a county beauty pageant when she was 17 which led to her being a contestant in the Miss North Carolina pageant, where she was helped along by a Summer Miller, a former beauty queen contestant and professional singer herself. She then appeared in a local version of American Idol called "Gimme the mic". She managed to make the finals of that show but eventually went down the tubes with an absolutely horrid rendition of Tammy Wynette’s Stand by Your Man, a few snippets of a performance that you can find here.
Vote for the Worst also rehashes some of her other claims and how they ring false, including her supposed naiveté, her true likeability factor, and her repeated claims of the rough life she has led. Now granted, a few of these claims come from an unnamed source, but it is supported by a photograph obtained from their unnamed source, one that hasn’t appeared elsewhere. Many of their other claims are backed up with known corroboration from independent web sites, including AOL’s TMZ. And does the girl wearing the prom dress that I posted a couple of days ago look like some naïve little country bumpkin to you? The Kellie supporters have rushed to claim it is photo-shopped, but I can put that theory to bed with the picture over at the left of this paragraph.
And besides the source at Vote for the Worst, there are others in and around Albemarle who aren’t particular thrilled with Kellie Pickler. One gentleman writes in his column:
Dear United States,
I apologize on behalf of Albemarle, NC. Please believe me when I say that Kellie Pickler does not stand for us (or at least doesn't represent me). Please do not resort to generalizing; we are not a lowly lot of inbred slack-jaws. Granted, there are a high percentage of those around here but for the most part they're good folk. Now, let's all find that common ground and pray to God that American Idol will be steadfast to its impending demise, as it looms like Death's scythe over the heads of all dedicated to virtue, sense, and plain ol' good taste.
Another North Carolinian writes:
I'm from North Carolina and it makes me sick that this girl is representing us. Contrary to popular belief we eat salmon, spinach and calamari and we know the difference between a minx and a mink.
It amazing that while she's getting her fake tan, teeth whitened and hair done that she has never run across SALMON before.
And elsewhere:
It's like they picked the biggest redneck they could find to represent NC and put her on AI for the world to see. And I am FROM NC.
As a Tar heel that comment sent me over the edge too, therefore the Pickler Tour Spinach Chop. There are hundreds of miles of cabbages and spinach around NC. Also, NC has some of the best public education in the country, so that act is insulting.
But, more telling than anything was this passage:
"This comment will make everyone angry, but please read all of it before you pass judgment on it. You have to live where we do to understand it fully.
I really don't mean to be rude, but I grew up here in Albemarle, NC and I see Kellie in a whole different light. Don't let her fool all of you.
Did any of you know she went to an expensive dance school?
She has won the Miss Stanly County Pageant which includes scholarship money, endorsements, advertising spots and many more incentives.
And just last year, she competed in a professional talent search in Charlotte, NC called 'Give Me the Mike Charlotte'.
To make things worse and to make her hometown look like a bunch of country bumpkins, hicks or rednecks, her speech is mostly fake. She is a well spoken young lady and does not have that much of a southern drawl.
I'm proud that she has made it as far as she has, but she is pulling the wool over everyone's eyes with her sob story. "
Minx – noun – (mingks) – a seductive woman who uses her sex appeal to exploit men.
When Simon Cowell makes his mind up about a contestant, that’s pretty much the way it’s going to be. He is seldom if ever wrong. So when Cowell proclaims on more than one occasion that Taylor, Chris and Kellie Pickler will be in the top three, you can pretty much take it to the bank. But did we really need Simon to tell us something many viewers have already figured out for themselves?
Since “Pick Pickler’s” first appearance on Idol, her hard luck story of “My daddy’s in jail, my mommy left me when I was two, and I had to live with my grandparents” has not only been played to the ultimate hilt by Idol, but has been picked up and replayed time and time again in the newspaper tabloids, the TV tabloids, and is plastered on just about any web site you come across when you Google the name “Kellie Pickler.”
A good portion of Idol viewers, including yours truly, bought it all hook line and sinker at the beginning, but after hearing about her poor family life and her sad sack story for what seemed to be the millionth time, I was screaming, “enough already!” And it would seem that there is a growing number of Idol fans who feel the same way.
Kellie hasn’t pimped that particular story on the show a great deal over the last few weeks, but she doesn’t have to now that she’s got Fox, Idol, and every entertainment show in the country doing it for her. Instead she has moved on to the “I’m just a poor dumb ignorant and naïve country girl from leetle ol’ Albemarle” shtick instead, and it seems as if the Idol producers are pushing her every step of the way. That too was okay the first couple of times. One certainly can understand that a person might not know what calamari is, especially in “leetle ol’ Albemarle” and I’ll be the first to admit that in the beginning I may have gotten more than a chuckle out of it. I might even give her the benefit of the doubt on the word minx, but just barely. After a while though, repetition can’t help but breed suspicion.Kellie did actually graduate from North Stanly High School, didn’t she? And they do teach vocabulary and literature in the Stanly County school system don’t they? Hopefully, Kellie Pickler is not indicative of what the education system in North Carolina is churning out because if it is folks, you’re not getting a whole lot for your tax dollars.
Maybe they don’t have televisions in Albemarle Land so it would only be natural that Kellie wouldn’t know about the outside world, or had never seen a dog with a sweater before. Or maybe Albemarle is really just like the town in the movie Pleasantville, where Main Street ends and then begins where it ends, and life is just beautiful all the time. Oh wait, she must have heard of American Idol. Well, maybe the reception is poor.
After calamari and minx, you would have thought that was more than enough of that shtick also. But no because every time that Kellie takes center stage it’s as if the little mouse that powers the wheel in her head is rapidly churning like it’s been pumped with the latest steroids to help Kellie decide which dumb mispronounced word or misunderstood definition she can blurt out for the amusement of all of those who like their Southern blondes, naïve, dumb, and as air headed as Paris Hilton, Jessica Simpson, and Britney Spears on their best days or even God help us, Kelly Bundy.
The problem is, that po’ little ol’ mouse in the wheel in her head must have finally collapsed from working overtime because Kelly has taken to falling back on recycled material from previous weeks.
“I got new shoes; I don’t have tarantulas on my eyelids no more. I’m a mink coat,” tee hee tee hee tee hee. Yes, you can go get out the barf bag now.
Probably the first time I smelled a rat was on Stevie Wonder night. In the early clips when the Idols met Stevie Wonder, Kellie’s eyes filled with tears as if she had just been crowned Corn Festival Queen in Hooterville. Later we found out she was clueless as to who Stevie Wonder was and knew nothing about his music. But maybe I misjudge her. Maybe she was crying because she actually had to sing something with a higher degree of difficult than Row Row Row Your Boat. Or then again, since she didn’t know who he was, maybe she was upset that he was blind. I half expected her to ask him how he became blind and how long had he suffered with this particular affliction until I realized the word affliction may not be in her vocabulary. Have you asked her about that one yet, Ryan?
When I first wrote about her performance of “Blame it on the Sun” during Stevie Wonder week, I said it looked like she had given up on it halfway through. I was wrong. It’s apparent that she never had any intention of giving it much of an effort, and decided her so called charm would bail her out as it always does, and that she could vamp Simon into another evening of submission. And it did. The judges helped her along with the usual excuses that it wasn’t her type of song, and Kellie threw in a few of her own excuses just for good measure: “I wasn’t used to the eyelashes, I was afraid the dress would fall off, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” tee hee tee hee tee hee. And although it was her worst performance yet, her other vocals haven’t been anything the rooster in her grandfather’s barn could crow about on any particular evening. As I have mentioned so many times though, when you’re one of the contestants that 19 Entertainment Executives are salivating over with the thought of putting you on a CD, in a low cut blouse it does have its advantages.
As I look back at Kellie's past performances, none have been memorable, and only one or two could be considered passable. Yet viewers and board posters alike have practically memorized the word’s “calamari, minx, and tarantula.” It should come as no surprise that seldom if ever, have the judges actually critiqued Kellie’s vocals. It’s “oh you’re just so darn cute and likable” and “people like you.” By comparison, when Ayla Brown did her rendition of “Unwritten” the critiques wasn’t of her vocals, or how she performed the song, it was “the song wasn’t difficult enough to showcase your vocals.”
By comparison, week after week Kellie has taken the easiest path possible, and has yet to hear one word of criticism for doing so, or do a song that would challenge her vocal chords beyond gargling Listerine in the morning. Likewise, when Cowell offhandedly says he likes Kellie better than Carrie when she (Kellie) couldn’t match one tenth of Carrie’s vocal ability on her best day, you know you are being sold a bill of goods. And when you give one of the worst performances of anybody during the season, such as Kellie did with “Blame it on the Sun” and the criticism is so mild and you still don’t drop to the bottom of the Idol barrel, you know they want you in it for the long haul.
It certainly didn’t take long for the web site Vote for the Worst to catch on. For those very few of you who don’t know, Vote for the Worst is a web site that promotes the fact that we should all vote for the worst contestant, keep them on the show as long as possible to teach Fox some kind of morality lesson about their secretive vote totals, shameless promoting of certain contestants, and their handy knack for putting weak performers through to Hollywood simply for entertainment value that has nothing to do with ability.
At first I was puzzled by this pick, simply because in the early stages, it has seemed as if Kellie was one of the favorites to win. But after giving it some thought, I understand it. When you lump all the contestants together at this stage of the game, it would be relatively easy to surmise that indeed Kellie is the worst of the lot, at least in the vocal department. I suppose one could make the case that Bucky is, but when Bucky is singing the right songs there’s nothing much wrong with his vocals at all. Then there is one other element where Bucky excels that Kellie does not, that being honesty. Bucky is genuine. What you see is what you get. It would now appear that Kellie is as about as genuine as a packet of nutra-sweet.
As Vote for the Worst pointed out in this cached article (the article will be reposted on March 26th with new information), her claim to have never sung in front of a big audience before would make one believe she walked straight out of the cow pasture and onto the stage of American Idol. She has in fact sang at a county beauty pageant when she was 17 which led to her being a contestant in the Miss North Carolina pageant, where she was helped along by a Summer Miller, a former beauty queen contestant and professional singer herself. She then appeared in a local version of American Idol called "Gimme the mic". She managed to make the finals of that show but eventually went down the tubes with an absolutely horrid rendition of Tammy Wynette’s Stand by Your Man, a few snippets of a performance that you can find here.
Vote for the Worst also rehashes some of her other claims and how they ring false, including her supposed naiveté, her true likeability factor, and her repeated claims of the rough life she has led. Now granted, a few of these claims come from an unnamed source, but it is supported by a photograph obtained from their unnamed source, one that hasn’t appeared elsewhere. Many of their other claims are backed up with known corroboration from independent web sites, including AOL’s TMZ. And does the girl wearing the prom dress that I posted a couple of days ago look like some naïve little country bumpkin to you? The Kellie supporters have rushed to claim it is photo-shopped, but I can put that theory to bed with the picture over at the left of this paragraph.And besides the source at Vote for the Worst, there are others in and around Albemarle who aren’t particular thrilled with Kellie Pickler. One gentleman writes in his column:
Dear United States,
I apologize on behalf of Albemarle, NC. Please believe me when I say that Kellie Pickler does not stand for us (or at least doesn't represent me). Please do not resort to generalizing; we are not a lowly lot of inbred slack-jaws. Granted, there are a high percentage of those around here but for the most part they're good folk. Now, let's all find that common ground and pray to God that American Idol will be steadfast to its impending demise, as it looms like Death's scythe over the heads of all dedicated to virtue, sense, and plain ol' good taste.
Another North Carolinian writes:
I'm from North Carolina and it makes me sick that this girl is representing us. Contrary to popular belief we eat salmon, spinach and calamari and we know the difference between a minx and a mink.
It amazing that while she's getting her fake tan, teeth whitened and hair done that she has never run across SALMON before.
And elsewhere:
It's like they picked the biggest redneck they could find to represent NC and put her on AI for the world to see. And I am FROM NC.
As a Tar heel that comment sent me over the edge too, therefore the Pickler Tour Spinach Chop. There are hundreds of miles of cabbages and spinach around NC. Also, NC has some of the best public education in the country, so that act is insulting.
But, more telling than anything was this passage:
"This comment will make everyone angry, but please read all of it before you pass judgment on it. You have to live where we do to understand it fully.
I really don't mean to be rude, but I grew up here in Albemarle, NC and I see Kellie in a whole different light. Don't let her fool all of you.
Did any of you know she went to an expensive dance school?
She has won the Miss Stanly County Pageant which includes scholarship money, endorsements, advertising spots and many more incentives.
And just last year, she competed in a professional talent search in Charlotte, NC called 'Give Me the Mike Charlotte'.
To make things worse and to make her hometown look like a bunch of country bumpkins, hicks or rednecks, her speech is mostly fake. She is a well spoken young lady and does not have that much of a southern drawl.
I'm proud that she has made it as far as she has, but she is pulling the wool over everyone's eyes with her sob story. "
And more:
I liked Kelly up until the last couple of shows, but she is really going over the top now with her dumb redneck act. She has been on the pageant circuit and also in the Miss North Carolina pageant, so those dumb remarks of hers just makes the rest of us from the south cringe.
Another blogger wrote:
Could she be any more manipulative and phony? She's from Albemarle, NC (Where the Terrorist Threat level is at 2 "Guarded" - potential threat. Go look; it's on the front of their webpage). Sure, this isn't the middle of Times Square, but it also isn't Hooterville Junction from the planet Hayseed in the Galaxy better known as East Bumfuck. This girl has a past and sooner or later photos from a Spring break trip to Panama City, the redneck Riviera, are bound to surface.
Of course, if you mention any of these inconsistencies to the rabid Kellie fans you get the usual silly stuff that you just can’t stand it that someone is so nice and genuine, and is a poor ol’ country girl that even has to work at the Sonic for extra spending money. As anybody in North Carolina will tell you, there are many young girls who work 10 to 20 hours a week at the Sonic and it’s not always for extra spending money. They work there for another very important reason. It’s where the guys go to ogle at the waitresses, and where the waitresses can ogle right back at them. When asked if guys come to the Sonic to stalk Kellie, the manager replied, “Well, I wouldn’t say stalk her exactly, but they certainly do notice her” And does somebody who can afford the expense of entering beauty pageants really need to be delivering food on roller skates?
When Leslie Grey Streeter took Kellie on in her Palm Beach Post internet column she wrote under the banner, Kellie Pickler, Evil Genius?
I think that, pushed far enough, pretty much everybody has an obsessive smacking gene in them somewhere. But Pickler, she of the charming ladies' man grandpa, the wonder-eyed discovery of
citified food they ain't got down there on the farm (this week: "Sal-mon!") and Comet the Wonder Mutt, doesn't want to channel that, because that would alienate the Dolly-bot fans that she's supposed to be inheriting. Nope, even though Simon thinks she's a "saucy little minx" - and excuse me, while I roll my eye - Pickler's only gonna growl so much until she remembers that her carefully ginghamed image with Grampy and Comet and sal-mon, and then she'll toss her adorable blond head and wrinkle her nose and giggle some more. Unless she drops that act and taps into her full CMT Ann-Margret capabilities, she's just so-so cakes to me.
And of course there were the usual replies pro and con, and the pro’s when talking about Kellie Pickler never fail to mention her “hard life.” But how hard was it really?
It’s not hard to tell even in the audition segments of American Idol who they intend to play up in the coming weeks. When Kellie’s audition was shown, her sad story that her mother left her when she was two, her grandparents raised her and her dad was a drug addict was put out there front and center for all of us to see so that we could shed a tear with her. It’s a story that Kellie wears like a badge of honor and draws like a gun. If you live in Albemarle, you certainly know of her sad tale of woe, likewise if you had anything to do with Miss Stanly County, Miss North Carolina and the Gimme’ A Mic, it’s the first thing you’ll find out about Kellie. It was partly that story that encouraged Summer Miller to guide Kellie through the pageants. Those who saw her on Gimme A Mic’ say her persona on that particular show was nothing like you see on American Idol.
What you have to remember is that all of these contestants have some background, both good and bad. Ayla Brown did not garner support although one could easily make the arugument that her vocals had been far superior than that of Kellie’s. She failed to receive votes because it’s hard for the gullible mass of American Idol viewers to shed a tear or two for a straight A hard working student. Idol certainly knows this, I’ve been well aware of it for the three years I’ve tuned in, and some more discerning viewers understand it. Certainly we heard time and time again about Fantasia’s sad story about trying to raise her child with little or no income. Last year it was Carrie’s story about being a naïve country girl from Oklahoma. And this year it’s the Kellie Pickler story.
While some people would love to see this as simply a talent contest where we decide who is the best vocalist and performer, it is in reality much more than that. Simon Fuller, the head honcho of American Idol, was the one who marketed and packaged the Spice Girls for us. And just as they were a commodity to be sold, so are those who sign on to American Idol. For that, Fuller receives far more than the usual 15 to 20 percent that any other manager might earn. He controls the merchandising, touring, sponsorship and movie deals. For appearing on World Idol, Clarkson received $1400. And what about those Ford commercials that the Idols do? They don’t get paid.
There is a clause in each Idol contract that states the show "may reveal and/or relate information about me of a personal, private, intimate, surprising, defamatory, disparaging, embarrassing or unfavorable nature that may be factual and/or fictional." So obviously only those details that Idol wants us to know about and which will help sell their product down the road are the ones that are publicized.
One case in point is Melissa McGhee. Certainly her story rivals that of Kellie Pickler.
When asked by a Fox interviewer "What would people be surprised to know about you?” McGhee replied, "I have had a really, really difficult life.
"When I was in high school I was ... still bubbly," said McGhee. "I wasn't a person who showed it, but things at home weren't always the best."
Her parents have both spent time in jail. McGhee's father, 42, has been arrested 30 times since 1981, according to Florida Department of Law Enforcement records. Johnson has been convicted repeatedly of writing bad checks and violating his probation. His most recent conviction was for domestic battery, for striking Mitzy McGhee in July 2002, court records show.
McGhee's mother, 40, was arrested 20 times between 1984 and 2000, mostly on charges of writing bad checks, records show. She has been convicted at least eight times on charges such as bad checks, larceny and probation violations, court records show.
Stranger still, In a written Q&A on the American Idol Web site, she went into detail about her family problems. That interview was later removed from the site, less it interfere with that of their main attraction Kellie Pickler.
And then there’s the case of Gedeon McKinney:
[Gedeon] McKinney is a textbook example of a contestant who would have stood a much better chance had the producers chosen to tell more of his back story.
He was supposed to audition in Memphis in September, but the auditions were canceled because of Hurricane Katrina. The teenager then went to Chicago, after raising the money by holding a concert at the Yo! Memphis Academy of Visual and Performing Arts and getting a donation from a local police association.
He earned his ticket to Hollywood, but in December, before the semifinals, his father died. McKinney chose to stay in the competition anyway, and sang well each week. Perhaps had he gotten the airtime that Kellie Pickler received before the semifinals started, that would have given him a fan base that would have carried him to the finals.
At first, I thought it may have been the choice of Gedeon or Melissa not to have this mentioned, but as the above contract paragraph states, that’s not the case. It’s solely a decision of the producers and who they want to back or not back to go on as far as they can. Poor Melissa didn’t even have her audition played on the program and the fact that she made it as far as she did is remarkable. There is no doubt in my mind that if Melissa or even Gedeon’s story had been put out there front and center, and Kellie’s had been put on the backburner that they would more than likely still be around and she would not. At this stage, when people vote for Kellie Pickler, it has little to do with vocal talent. Certainly I find Melissa’s and Gedeon’s stories just as compelling if not more so.
So why Kellie? Besides the advantage of having the soap opera type tear jerker of a story, the producers also get to make use of the naïve country bumpkin shtick along with it, giving America tears and laughter all at the same time. Could anything be more compelling than that? And there is another big advantage to having your hard luck story featured early and often.
Immediately after Kellie’s story aired during the audition, fan support groups sprung up all over the internet giving her an immediate and strong fan base before she had sung a single note in actual competition. When Gedeon and Melissa first sang in their appearances on the final 24, they were in fact starting from scratch where Kellie and possibly a few others were not. This makes a world of difference on American Idol. Yet, at no time has anybody really taken the time to delve further into Kellie’s hard luck story beyond the standard press releases handed out by Freemantle and 19 Entertainment.
So what about that hard luck story of Kellie’s? Was life as miserable as she has played it out to be time after time? There are so many unanswered questions about that story and more than enough holes in it that if it were a cruise ship it would sink faster than you can say Titanic.
The basic story is this, and the same few lines have run just about every where with nothing more than a few words possibly changed here and there.
Kellie's mother left her when she was two years old, and her father has been in and out of prison. Her grandmother passed away a couple years ago.
In interview after interview its generally the first thing out of Kellie’s mouth.
Of course, if that’s all anyone bothered to look at or read, the would be under the presumption that a) Kellie’s mother left at the age of two and b) she lived with her grandparents from then until now. Except that isn’t quite the way it happened.
Before we condemn Kellie’s mother to be burned at the stake, let’s remember a few things. When Kellie’s was born, her mother was barely out of high school herself probably no more than eighteen years old. Certainly a young girl with a child and an abusive husband may find life difficult to deal with. Kellie's father was a known drug addict and alcoholic. We know her mother left two years later, but it is highly unlikely that she just up and fled and was never heard from again for no reason. Well, not exactly.
From the Charlotte Observer:
Like Barrino, Pickler is forthright and unsoured by the crushing grief she faced. "My mother left me when I was about 2 years old," she said via telephone between rehearsals in Hollywood. "I don't know where she moved to, somewhere in California. ...
"My dad was a drug user and an alcoholic. So I lived off and on with my grandparents. Whenever my dad would get locked up, I'd move in with my grandparents and wait until he got out and got straightened out again."
Unbeknownst to Pickler, her mother returned to Albemarle (about 40 miles northeast of Charlotte). Their paths crossed in a chance encounter when Pickler was in the fourth grade.
"My grandparents and I were eating out and my mother was in there with some of her friends. I don't know how I knew it was her, but we made eye contact. She went to court trying to fight for custody of me."
Her mother won, Pickler said, and for the next two years had custody. "That whole time my grandparents were trying to get me back."
They eventually succeeded. Pickler's mother left. She and her daughter haven't been in contact for years. Her father, meanwhile, was arrested several times in North Carolina -- drunken driving, assault, armed robbery. "He'd get out of prison, get on drugs really bad, get tied up with the wrong people," she said.
Okay, maybe I’m overly suspicious, but to hear Kellie talk about it, she has no clue as to why her mother left. It would also appear that she was dividing her time up between the grandparents and her father. Yet, her mother did have custody for at the very least two years after her return, and certainly in that amount of time, Kellie had to have learned something about what was going on. Well, maybe Kellie was too young at that time to understand what was going on. You know, trying to explain to a child why things happened the way they did can be quite difficult except for the fact that Kellie wasn’t so young when this was going on. In fact, the custody case wasn’t settled until just three short years ago as we find out in this interview with her maternal grandfather, Ken Morton, that ran in Fayetteville Online:
Pickler is living out a young woman’s dream, and Morton has his granddaughter back in his life.
The girl with the corn silk hair is the product of a dysfunctional home that saw her mother abandon her at age 2 and a father run afoul of drugs, alcohol and the law.
Clyde “Bo” Pickler, her 41-year-old father, is serving out a 45-month prison term in a Florida and Morton says he has no idea where his daughter — Kellie Pickler’s mother — is.
He is guarded in his words, but does say that for years she would not allow him to have contact with his granddaughter.
“Until about three years ago,” he says when a child custody dispute was settled and Kellie was ordered to live with her paternal grandparents in Stanly County, just east of Charlotte.
Which means Kellie was at least sixteen before losing contact with her mother again, and not the little child everybody has pictured. And if she ran into her mother again in the fourth grade, exactly how long did that custody battle rage? And let’s not forget that in cases of this nature, in which a child has spent a great deal of time with one half of the family, in this case Clyde Pickler and his parents, they are obviously going to paint a picture of the other parent as they see fit, not necessarily as to what really happened, and it’s certainly going to change a child’s prospective.
Could she be any more manipulative and phony? She's from Albemarle, NC (Where the Terrorist Threat level is at 2 "Guarded" - potential threat. Go look; it's on the front of their webpage). Sure, this isn't the middle of Times Square, but it also isn't Hooterville Junction from the planet Hayseed in the Galaxy better known as East Bumfuck. This girl has a past and sooner or later photos from a Spring break trip to Panama City, the redneck Riviera, are bound to surface.
Of course, if you mention any of these inconsistencies to the rabid Kellie fans you get the usual silly stuff that you just can’t stand it that someone is so nice and genuine, and is a poor ol’ country girl that even has to work at the Sonic for extra spending money. As anybody in North Carolina will tell you, there are many young girls who work 10 to 20 hours a week at the Sonic and it’s not always for extra spending money. They work there for another very important reason. It’s where the guys go to ogle at the waitresses, and where the waitresses can ogle right back at them. When asked if guys come to the Sonic to stalk Kellie, the manager replied, “Well, I wouldn’t say stalk her exactly, but they certainly do notice her” And does somebody who can afford the expense of entering beauty pageants really need to be delivering food on roller skates?
When Leslie Grey Streeter took Kellie on in her Palm Beach Post internet column she wrote under the banner, Kellie Pickler, Evil Genius?
I think that, pushed far enough, pretty much everybody has an obsessive smacking gene in them somewhere. But Pickler, she of the charming ladies' man grandpa, the wonder-eyed discovery of
citified food they ain't got down there on the farm (this week: "Sal-mon!") and Comet the Wonder Mutt, doesn't want to channel that, because that would alienate the Dolly-bot fans that she's supposed to be inheriting. Nope, even though Simon thinks she's a "saucy little minx" - and excuse me, while I roll my eye - Pickler's only gonna growl so much until she remembers that her carefully ginghamed image with Grampy and Comet and sal-mon, and then she'll toss her adorable blond head and wrinkle her nose and giggle some more. Unless she drops that act and taps into her full CMT Ann-Margret capabilities, she's just so-so cakes to me.And of course there were the usual replies pro and con, and the pro’s when talking about Kellie Pickler never fail to mention her “hard life.” But how hard was it really?
It’s not hard to tell even in the audition segments of American Idol who they intend to play up in the coming weeks. When Kellie’s audition was shown, her sad story that her mother left her when she was two, her grandparents raised her and her dad was a drug addict was put out there front and center for all of us to see so that we could shed a tear with her. It’s a story that Kellie wears like a badge of honor and draws like a gun. If you live in Albemarle, you certainly know of her sad tale of woe, likewise if you had anything to do with Miss Stanly County, Miss North Carolina and the Gimme’ A Mic, it’s the first thing you’ll find out about Kellie. It was partly that story that encouraged Summer Miller to guide Kellie through the pageants. Those who saw her on Gimme A Mic’ say her persona on that particular show was nothing like you see on American Idol.
What you have to remember is that all of these contestants have some background, both good and bad. Ayla Brown did not garner support although one could easily make the arugument that her vocals had been far superior than that of Kellie’s. She failed to receive votes because it’s hard for the gullible mass of American Idol viewers to shed a tear or two for a straight A hard working student. Idol certainly knows this, I’ve been well aware of it for the three years I’ve tuned in, and some more discerning viewers understand it. Certainly we heard time and time again about Fantasia’s sad story about trying to raise her child with little or no income. Last year it was Carrie’s story about being a naïve country girl from Oklahoma. And this year it’s the Kellie Pickler story.
While some people would love to see this as simply a talent contest where we decide who is the best vocalist and performer, it is in reality much more than that. Simon Fuller, the head honcho of American Idol, was the one who marketed and packaged the Spice Girls for us. And just as they were a commodity to be sold, so are those who sign on to American Idol. For that, Fuller receives far more than the usual 15 to 20 percent that any other manager might earn. He controls the merchandising, touring, sponsorship and movie deals. For appearing on World Idol, Clarkson received $1400. And what about those Ford commercials that the Idols do? They don’t get paid.
There is a clause in each Idol contract that states the show "may reveal and/or relate information about me of a personal, private, intimate, surprising, defamatory, disparaging, embarrassing or unfavorable nature that may be factual and/or fictional." So obviously only those details that Idol wants us to know about and which will help sell their product down the road are the ones that are publicized.
One case in point is Melissa McGhee. Certainly her story rivals that of Kellie Pickler.
When asked by a Fox interviewer "What would people be surprised to know about you?” McGhee replied, "I have had a really, really difficult life.
"When I was in high school I was ... still bubbly," said McGhee. "I wasn't a person who showed it, but things at home weren't always the best."
Her parents have both spent time in jail. McGhee's father, 42, has been arrested 30 times since 1981, according to Florida Department of Law Enforcement records. Johnson has been convicted repeatedly of writing bad checks and violating his probation. His most recent conviction was for domestic battery, for striking Mitzy McGhee in July 2002, court records show.
McGhee's mother, 40, was arrested 20 times between 1984 and 2000, mostly on charges of writing bad checks, records show. She has been convicted at least eight times on charges such as bad checks, larceny and probation violations, court records show.
Stranger still, In a written Q&A on the American Idol Web site, she went into detail about her family problems. That interview was later removed from the site, less it interfere with that of their main attraction Kellie Pickler.
And then there’s the case of Gedeon McKinney:
[Gedeon] McKinney is a textbook example of a contestant who would have stood a much better chance had the producers chosen to tell more of his back story.
He was supposed to audition in Memphis in September, but the auditions were canceled because of Hurricane Katrina. The teenager then went to Chicago, after raising the money by holding a concert at the Yo! Memphis Academy of Visual and Performing Arts and getting a donation from a local police association.
He earned his ticket to Hollywood, but in December, before the semifinals, his father died. McKinney chose to stay in the competition anyway, and sang well each week. Perhaps had he gotten the airtime that Kellie Pickler received before the semifinals started, that would have given him a fan base that would have carried him to the finals.
At first, I thought it may have been the choice of Gedeon or Melissa not to have this mentioned, but as the above contract paragraph states, that’s not the case. It’s solely a decision of the producers and who they want to back or not back to go on as far as they can. Poor Melissa didn’t even have her audition played on the program and the fact that she made it as far as she did is remarkable. There is no doubt in my mind that if Melissa or even Gedeon’s story had been put out there front and center, and Kellie’s had been put on the backburner that they would more than likely still be around and she would not. At this stage, when people vote for Kellie Pickler, it has little to do with vocal talent. Certainly I find Melissa’s and Gedeon’s stories just as compelling if not more so.
So why Kellie? Besides the advantage of having the soap opera type tear jerker of a story, the producers also get to make use of the naïve country bumpkin shtick along with it, giving America tears and laughter all at the same time. Could anything be more compelling than that? And there is another big advantage to having your hard luck story featured early and often.
Immediately after Kellie’s story aired during the audition, fan support groups sprung up all over the internet giving her an immediate and strong fan base before she had sung a single note in actual competition. When Gedeon and Melissa first sang in their appearances on the final 24, they were in fact starting from scratch where Kellie and possibly a few others were not. This makes a world of difference on American Idol. Yet, at no time has anybody really taken the time to delve further into Kellie’s hard luck story beyond the standard press releases handed out by Freemantle and 19 Entertainment.
So what about that hard luck story of Kellie’s? Was life as miserable as she has played it out to be time after time? There are so many unanswered questions about that story and more than enough holes in it that if it were a cruise ship it would sink faster than you can say Titanic.
The basic story is this, and the same few lines have run just about every where with nothing more than a few words possibly changed here and there.
Kellie's mother left her when she was two years old, and her father has been in and out of prison. Her grandmother passed away a couple years ago.
In interview after interview its generally the first thing out of Kellie’s mouth.
Of course, if that’s all anyone bothered to look at or read, the would be under the presumption that a) Kellie’s mother left at the age of two and b) she lived with her grandparents from then until now. Except that isn’t quite the way it happened.
Before we condemn Kellie’s mother to be burned at the stake, let’s remember a few things. When Kellie’s was born, her mother was barely out of high school herself probably no more than eighteen years old. Certainly a young girl with a child and an abusive husband may find life difficult to deal with. Kellie's father was a known drug addict and alcoholic. We know her mother left two years later, but it is highly unlikely that she just up and fled and was never heard from again for no reason. Well, not exactly.
From the Charlotte Observer:
Like Barrino, Pickler is forthright and unsoured by the crushing grief she faced. "My mother left me when I was about 2 years old," she said via telephone between rehearsals in Hollywood. "I don't know where she moved to, somewhere in California. ...
"My dad was a drug user and an alcoholic. So I lived off and on with my grandparents. Whenever my dad would get locked up, I'd move in with my grandparents and wait until he got out and got straightened out again."
Unbeknownst to Pickler, her mother returned to Albemarle (about 40 miles northeast of Charlotte). Their paths crossed in a chance encounter when Pickler was in the fourth grade.
"My grandparents and I were eating out and my mother was in there with some of her friends. I don't know how I knew it was her, but we made eye contact. She went to court trying to fight for custody of me."
Her mother won, Pickler said, and for the next two years had custody. "That whole time my grandparents were trying to get me back."
They eventually succeeded. Pickler's mother left. She and her daughter haven't been in contact for years. Her father, meanwhile, was arrested several times in North Carolina -- drunken driving, assault, armed robbery. "He'd get out of prison, get on drugs really bad, get tied up with the wrong people," she said.
Okay, maybe I’m overly suspicious, but to hear Kellie talk about it, she has no clue as to why her mother left. It would also appear that she was dividing her time up between the grandparents and her father. Yet, her mother did have custody for at the very least two years after her return, and certainly in that amount of time, Kellie had to have learned something about what was going on. Well, maybe Kellie was too young at that time to understand what was going on. You know, trying to explain to a child why things happened the way they did can be quite difficult except for the fact that Kellie wasn’t so young when this was going on. In fact, the custody case wasn’t settled until just three short years ago as we find out in this interview with her maternal grandfather, Ken Morton, that ran in Fayetteville Online:
Pickler is living out a young woman’s dream, and Morton has his granddaughter back in his life.
The girl with the corn silk hair is the product of a dysfunctional home that saw her mother abandon her at age 2 and a father run afoul of drugs, alcohol and the law.
Clyde “Bo” Pickler, her 41-year-old father, is serving out a 45-month prison term in a Florida and Morton says he has no idea where his daughter — Kellie Pickler’s mother — is.
He is guarded in his words, but does say that for years she would not allow him to have contact with his granddaughter.
“Until about three years ago,” he says when a child custody dispute was settled and Kellie was ordered to live with her paternal grandparents in Stanly County, just east of Charlotte.
Which means Kellie was at least sixteen before losing contact with her mother again, and not the little child everybody has pictured. And if she ran into her mother again in the fourth grade, exactly how long did that custody battle rage? And let’s not forget that in cases of this nature, in which a child has spent a great deal of time with one half of the family, in this case Clyde Pickler and his parents, they are obviously going to paint a picture of the other parent as they see fit, not necessarily as to what really happened, and it’s certainly going to change a child’s prospective.
Drug addicted, alcoholic father who can’t stay out of jail and left eight years ago – good, Mother who left under circumstances we know nothing about, returned to regain custody and fight for it for years and left three years ago – bad. It just doesn’t add up and is a far cry from the simple story we’ve been fed time and time again.
But what about the mother? Who knows? She isn’t speaking, and nobody else is talking about the custody case. Was there a payoff, or a settlement? Why did she finally lose custody again after fighting it for so long? What happened during those two years with her mother? They couldn’t have been exactly horrible or I’m sure we’d be hearing about that also. And why was her maternal grandfather, who isn’t exactly filling in any details, denied permission to see her. What was up with that? There had to be a reason. There was a story in The Star that said her mother allegedly had married three or four times and allegedly may have been a con artist. Yet, that’s the only mention of it and the facts of that story are certainly questionable taken from nothing more than a search of county records.
The point I’m trying to make is that the short Cliff Notes version of her “hard life” that Kellie is selling time and time again, may have more to it than meets the eye. But if it will win you a favored spot on American Idol, you give it to the producers and let them sell it. After all, you do want to be the next American Idol, don’t you?
Click here to visit my home page and archives for more videos, articles and other Idol stuff.
