AI OD: A farewell to Danny Noriega - VIDEOS

In AOL's interview with Danny Noriega, the flamboyant American Idol contestant said he was and wasn't surprised about being eliminated on the cusp of making the Top 12. "I always go into the results not knowing what to expect because they are so unpredictable," he said. While Danny's vocals had been inconsistent throughout the voting portion of the competition, I figured his antics and personality would garner him enough votes to get in.

In no way did I think Danny showed the talent to win the competition, so I'm actually glad he's gone, if surprised. I think his behavior and "sassitude" would have been more of a distraction than the show needed. And, as it stands, the six guys who made it are all better than he proved to be. He was really good early on, but couldn't maintain that consistency of quality.



Danny's elimination came at just the right time, ultimately, for me. Again, on his encore of "Tainted Love," Danny's vocals were just terrible. By this point he'd become a cartoon of himself. Just as Sanjaya became "the hair" overshadowing his sub-par vocals, Danny had become the attitude overshadowing his increasingly sub-par performances.:


With his song choice and vocal performance this week, Danny was pretty well doomed. His slow descent into the bottom rankings was complete with what was honestly the worst performance of the night. I don't know what happened to Danny; though maybe he was more focused on reading fan mail, being famous and making friends than he was on singing. Whatever happened, he sealed his own fate with this.:


For Top 20 week, Danny came across as if he was trying too hard to be emotional and passionate. It never range true, and ultimately hurt his overall performance. Vocally, he was okay. The juxtaposition between his overwrought expressions during the performance and his expected cattiness afterward just made the whole thing even phonier.:


Honestly, other than the weirdness of someone as flamboyant as Danny doing a song by someone as potently "male" as Elvis, I thought he did a really good job here. Even his cattiness at the end came across as almost charming rather than disrespectful. Unfortunately, he may have started to buy into his own hype a bit after this performance.:


This was the best Danny Noriega for me. He hadn't yet grown his hair into that weird gender-bending hybrid style he wore on the show, and while he was still over the top with a lot of his movements, he was a lot more humble and let his voice do the work. And he sounded really, really good here.:


Before he made the show, Danny liked to record himself. There's some "not so nice" recordings of him out there I'll let you find on your own, but this is him doing a pretty solid rendition of "Chain of Fools." The kid on this video and in that initial audition was a singer who could sing. The kid who got voted out of American Idol was a personality who also sang. I think that was ultimately Danny's problem.:

Over at Reality TV World, they addressed the portion of the interview concerning the rumors that Danny Noriega is gay. Even though he rapped about being gay in a video on YouTube, and his flamboyancy was enough to convince most people, now Danny refuses to talk about his sexual orientation. "I think your personal life and your job are two different things," he said. "I think people should respect that and know the fine line between that. Privacy is really important."

Need more American Idol? Get an inside look at Season 7's contestants and think back to these scathing (and hilarious) Simon Cowell quotes. Also: Don't forget to choose your favorite Idol!!

Danny, singing isn't your job. See, you were on a game show. Honestly, is Idol still so afraid to have an openly gay person on the show, or do they have their own "don't ask, don't tell" policy in place. Certainly David Hernandez' sexual orientation has to be in question considering his prior employment.

In regards to the various YouTube videos that have surfaced involving juvenile and crude humor as well as the gay admission, Danny said, "That's something that is so forever ago that I used to do. It was almost like another person ago." Danny's 18 so forever ago was ... what? A couple years ago? He seemed upset that those would surface now as he's trying to make a career for himself. Here's my question. You posted them on the Internet, the most permanent and public forum in existence. Did you really think they'd not surface? Good lord how naive can you be?

I'll give him credit for staying true to himself, though. Despite attempts by Idol to have him tone down his at times outrageous behavior, Danny wouldn't do it. And he even took his elimination with maturity saying, "You can't please everybody. I guess the majority of the voters just didn't like me. But that's that -- it is what it is. I can't change myself for anybody."

Even his mantra for his future involves inspiring kids and other people to be themselves and that it's okay to be different "whether it's sexuality or their race or anything like that. It's fine to be yourself and be successful." So if he's so confident of who he is as a person, why can't he say if he's gay or not? Is that his decision or pressure from Idol? The world may never know.

IDOL SEASON 7 FAREWELLS
#14 - Asia'h Epperson
#15 - Luke Menard
#16 - Kady Malloy
#17 - Robbie Carrico
#18 - Alaina Whitaker
#19 - Alexandrea Lushington
#20 - Jason Yeager
#21 - Colton Berry
#22 - Joanne Borgella
#23 - Amy Davis
#24 - Garrett Haley