Momma Paris Bennett

For longtime fans of American Idol, it may be difficult to believe the reality singing competition is approaching the final stretch of an eighth season. But how the time passes and past contestants continue with their lives — whether in fame, relative anonymity or somewhere in between.

And part of those lives includes love and visitation from the stork.

They are part of two past American Idol hopefuls’ lives.

Pint-sized powerhouse named Paris Bennett, a 16-year-old who earned a top-five finalist spot during the show’s fifth season and Motown-like belter LaKisha Jones, who finished fourth in the sixth season are a pair of notable moms.

It’s hard to believe that Bennett, the fresh-face little girl of three years ago known as “Princess P,” became a mother last October.

It seemed like just yesterday this writer remembers the Edina, Minnesota high-schooler worked out Beyonce’s Work It Outand nuzzled during a duet with soulful jazzman Al Jarreau on American Idol finale night in We’re in This Love Together.

The little girl, Egypt Bennett, weighed 5 pounds, 15 ounces at birth.

Meanwhile, Jones, 29, is expecting two deliveries this spring: her second child and first CD called So Glad I’m Me.

The singer with roots in gospel choir music wed financial advisor Larry Davis last fall and the couple is expecting their first child together. Five-year-old Brionne is Jones’ first daughter.

Prior to competing in American Idol, Jones worked as a banking associate for Provident Bank in Millersville, Maryland.

The Flint, Michigan native told People that between her American Idol experience and marrying Davis — who bonded with Jones’ daughter quickly — has met her primary goal “to provide a better life for me and my daughter and that’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

Ruben and Frenchie do a little dance...

Handfuls are fortunate enough to be called an American Idol champion while many had the chance to grace the country’s largest reality television show as a contender. All move forward with their lives after their American Idol days have past.

Former American Idolseason two contest winner Ruben Studdard, along with contestants Frenchie Davis and Trenyce Cobbins, have teamed up for the April run of the Tony Award-winning musical revue Ain’t Misbehavin’.

Performances will be held at Colorado Springs’ Pikes Peak Center on April 1-2 and at Boston’s Strand Theatre from April 10-12.

From the Murray Horwitz book and music by Thomas “Fats” Waller, the musical soul of 1930’s Harlem is resurrected in a swinging, finger-snapping stage event considered one of Broadway’s best.

Meanwhile, the Honolulu Star Bulletin reports that South Pacific resident and American Idol season three third-place finisher Jasmine Trias will perform as a special guest with the Society of Seven LV – a Polynesian equivalent of the Blue Man Group – on weekend engagements from March 6 through April 4 at the Outrigger Waikiki Hotel main showroom.

For more than 30 years, The Society of Seven has brought classic impersonations and comedy acts, Broadway show tunes and today’s popular hits to the beachfront Waikiki lodge.

Season Seven

After a subpar effort Tuesday and voted off of reality singing show American Idol the next night, competitor Alexis Grace was disheartened. “I feel kind of like I let my state down,” the potent, petite Tennessee native Grace said.

She’s also disappointed in just missing the cut for the American Idol concert tour, which is limited to the top 10 finalists.

Grace was edged out for the last tour position by Texan Michael Sarver — who appeared to be going home after clunking through Garth Brooks hit Ain’t Goin’ Down Till the Sun Comes Up.

But, ahhhhhh…snake eyes. A pair of ones for the 99-pound power pack from Memphis and a trip home to see her one-year-old son Ryan.

Grace can take solace in knowing she edged out more than 120,000 tryout wannabees during Season Eight.

And there are seven others who tripped up just before the tenth spot. (Sort of — the show’s first-year format eliminated multiple singers simultaneously, effectively tying them for eleventh place.)

The closest, most questionable call was during American Idol Season Six, when Stephanie Edwards of Savannah, Ga. fell short after a pleasant delivery of Dusty Springfield’s You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me. Hair-endowed Sanjaya Malakar and scantily-clad Haley Scarnato landed more of the popular vote than Edwards, who many had pegged as a top-five dark horse.

Following American Idol, Edwards recorded a charity single called On Our Way, which was released in October 2007 as a CD on eBay. Proceed benefited the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Light the Night Walk Campaign.

Bouncy, effervescent Mikalah Gordon of Las Vegas just missed the show’s fourth season tour with a serviceable Love Will Lead You Back. Gordon with plenty of camera and stage savvy, has gone onto to appear on several television shows including sitcom Living With Fran, The Tyra Banks Show and American Idol Extra. She has appeared on NBC’s Identity as an American Idol finalist, on CBS show The Unitas a USO tour country singer in Iraq and on stage as Dorothy, in Todrick Hall’s retelling of the Wizard of Oz.

As a stud offensive lineman at the University of Washington, Matt Rogers dozed paths for running backs that found 2001 Rose Bowl championship paydirt. But during American IdolSeason Three, Rogers landed just short with Lonestar’s Amazed. The Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. native has continued to keep touch with the gridiron and the stage, though. Rogers is currently a football coach at neighboring Mission Viejo High School and hosts the Discovery Channel show Really Big Things.

Rogers has also served as co-host for American Idol Extra, and has worked as a national-level sports and entertainment show correspondent. He appeared on the American Idol edition of Family Feud.

At the start of seasons two, five and seven, nobody would have predicted that Charles Grigsby, Kevin Covais and Amanda Overmyer would have been on the brink of an American Idol tour position. Grigsby, an Ohioan that relocated to Detroit, is a 100 percent self-taught musician and vocalist who exudes a true-to-the-’hood persona.

In contrast, Covais, a prim-and-proper intellectual from central Long Island has choir boy looks and could be mistaken for a white-coated scientist instead of an entertainer; until he grabs a microphone — and command of the stage. The bespectacled Covais rode the “Chicken Little” persona until an off-the-mark croon When I Fall in Love by Doris Day.

After the Idol season and Covais’ rounds on the talk-show circuit, the baby-faced New Yorker co-starred in the comedy film College and in Labor Pains– along the side of Lindsey Lohan and Chris Parnell.

Covais is a Youth Ambassador for the American Diabetes Association educating young people about diabetes.

Meanwhile, medical professional Ovemyer, who specializes in respiratory therapy, also has a love of piloting Harley Davidson motorcycles and overall personal flair that fueled her American Idol moniker “Rock-n-Roll Nurse.” The gravely voiced singer and nearly a Janis Joplin reincarnate, Overmyer bowed out during a cover on The Beatles’ Back in the U.S.S.R.

The rocker from Indiana made post-contest stops on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Live with Regis and Kelly, and The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet.

Last May, Overmyer headlined the Women of Rock show at the Whisky A Go Go in West Hollywood, CA. and debuted four original songs. True to form, Overmyer performed at the Harley Davidson Summerfest in Milwaukee, Wi. in August 2008 and at a Lafayette, Ind. homecoming in September — where she debuted new music from her first solo album, Solidify.

It appears there’s never a dull moment for eleventh-place finishers: they are living enjoyable, productive post-American Idol lives. Grace and her pre-tenth dismisses can hold their heads high.

There truly is life after 11.

Melinda Doolittle

To meet Melinda Marie Doolittle on the street, one would never suspect the American Idol season six second runner-up was a performer and could never fathom that she could command a stage with saucy, assertive licks like Bon Jovi’s Have a Nice Day or Peggy Lee’s I’m a Woman.

Born October 6, 1977 in St. Louis, MO, to parents Steve and Marguerite Duke Doolittle, the microphone is a wand that transforms the sturdily built Brentwood, TN resident from mild to wild.

The unanimous front runner by all three show panelists and many fans, the American Idol 2007 contestant started at the rear of the pack - as a backup singer.

Singing since the seventh grade, the vocal power pack later performed in musical theater and was voted Union High’s Most Talented and Most Spirited at School.

Doolittle, a 1995 graduate of Union High School in Tulsa briefly attended the University of Tulsa before completing a four-year degree in Commercial Music at Belmont University in Nashville.

Prior to her appearance on American Idol, Doolittle worked as a professional back-up singer for a host of industry notables including Michael McDonald, Kirk Franklin, Aaron Neville, BeBe and CeCe Winans, Alabama, Vanessa Bell Armstrong, and the group Anointed.

Doolittle’s sixth season appearance was foreshadowed by a cameo backup role for American Idol season three finalist George Huff’s 2004 holiday CD George Huff Christmas. Personal friend and season five competitor Mandisa Hundley helped nudge her toward the reality show and a lead singer role.

A devout Christian, Doolittle is a member of Music for the Soul, a nonprofit organization ministering through music.

In 2007, Doolittle was interviewed for CNN’s Young People Who Rock series, where she stated support for the Malaria No More campaign and how donating bed nets can help to eradicate malaria from the African continent. She specifically mentioned supportive fans who made bed net donations at each of the 59 American Idol tour venues and who also made a large donation on her birthday.

A self-proclaimed “neat freak,” Doolittle admitted to suffering from borderline obsessive-compulsive disorder.

As part of a pre-performance American Idol personal vignette, Doolittle admitted that “I don’t step on the cracks on the sidewalk. It gives me bad luck.”

Frenchie Davis

Born on May 7, 1979 in Lawndale, Calif., Franchelle “Frenchie” Davis is one person who probably won’t say “I want to be in pictures”- at least not the controversial variety that resulted in Davis’ expulsion from Season Two of American Idol. Years before her appearance on the Fox reality show, it is claimed that Davis had posed mostly nude and in lingerie on an adult website to earn money for college.

The Washington D.C. resident whose talent once drew raves and was a projected frontrunner by American Idol panelists in late 2002, retained a flair for the radical, appearing on the Broadway hit Rent in ensemble roles and as a soloist by the middle of 2003.

Through most of August 2007, Davis starred in the Hartford Stage production of Mahalia, A Gospel Musical in the role of Mahalia Jackson. After a West Coast tour as a member of the musical Dreamgirls, Davis continued her past role in Rent for two more seasons, supplementing her income with a weekly cabaret act at the XL bar in New York City.

Davis has expressed intent to return to Howard University, a private university in Washington, DC, to finish her undergraduate degree.

Not Misbehavin‘ now, Davis joined with Ruben Studdard in 2008 to star in the 30th anniversary national tour of the musical review Ain’t Misbehavin’, a revival of the 1978 Broadway show that ran for nearly 1,600 performances.

In late 2008, Davis underwent a surgery to remove a vocal cord polyp - it has begun to cause fatigue and hoarseness after performances.

“I’ve talked to other singers who had surgery. One girl said her voice went up. Others’ voices got clearer. I’m just excited to see and a little nervous, of course. It’s still surgery,” Davis told The Associated Press at the time.

Kelly Clarkson

Kelly Clarkson returns to the American idol stage March 11 on Fox set to perform her smash My Life Would Suck Without You.

Clarkson is the original American Idol winner and has become an A-list superstar with a half-dozen number ones and over 20 million albums sold.

Her latest hit, My Life Would Suck Without You, arrived January 28 and blazed up the Billboard Hot 100 chart in two short weeks. By the first week in February, Clarkson’s unique ode to love rocketed from number 97 to number 1 on the Hot 100. That is a record American Idolfans. Clarkson achieved the largest leap in the Billboard’s 50-year history.

Clarkson’s My December may have stumbled on the charts, but thus far, it looks as if fans have forgotten all about that misstep to embrace the singer once again. My Life Would Suck Without You is on its way to being the biggest hit of 2009.

Kelly’s won two Grammy Awards, two American Music Awards, two MTV Awards and 11 Billboard Awards. Her latest album, All I Ever Wanted, featuring the hit My Life Would Suck Without You premieres March 10.

Meanwhile, on March 10 the top 13 will storm the American Idolstage, each seeking to achieve what Clarkson has in droves – music industry success.

That next night, one of the Idolswill go home. At least the consolation prize is witnessing Kelly Clarkson sing live.

The road to American Idol notoriety is a bumpy one for some. Born on May 4, 1985 in the Soviet Union’s Ukraine province and relocated to Trevose, Pennsylvania, it was doubtful whether Anatoliy Vladimirovich Fedorov would ever talk again, let alone share his gentle, harmonious tenor voice with millions of American Idol viewers across the United states.

Known more commonly as Anthony Fedorov, the lad originally from Yalta, Soviet Union required surgery as a toddler to birth defect in his windpipe. A faint scar is a visible reminder of how despite skepticism that he would even be able to talk again, Federov’s perseverance inevitably landed him a fourth place finish on the fourth season of American Idol.

Judges Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul and Randy Jackson viewed ballads as the baby faced, bookish-looking Fedorov’s strength. If You Don’t Know Me By Now by Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, Celine Dion’s I Surrender and Paul Young’s Everytime You Go Away are the pillars of a fan following that refers to themselves as the “Fedoration”.

Having moved to the United States in 1994, the Fedorov family of parents Vladimir and Nataliya Fedorov, older brother Denis and Anthony in reside in Trevose, Penn., a hamlet of about 8,000 persons located halfway between Philadelphia and Trenton, New Jersey.

Federov’s post-Idol life has included the passing of his brother Denis to sarcoma, a visit to NBC’s reality show Fear Factor, a tour of American Air Force bases in Europe, a leading role in an off-Broadway production of The Fantasticks, appearances in four episodes of MTV’s Little Talent Show - Triple Threat, and work on a debut album.

More can be read about Fedorov at www.anthonyfanclub.com

Not sure if this ranks right up there with getting your own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, but hey we think being immortalized in wax is pretty cool.

At Madame Tussaud’s in New York, Carrie Underwood was on hand to unveil her “twin.”

She enjoyed the entire experience. Although from the photo above, one may question that first reaction is the true experience mantra. Carrie…we feel you on this one!

Clay Aiken chatted with Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America about what it’s like to be a gay dad. For years this guy wouldn’t talk about it and now he won’t shut up. We get it! You’re gay! We’ve been talking about it since you were on Idol - you can’t tell us anything we haven’t already said! Let’s move on to more important subjects, like whether or not Dylan McKay will return to 90210.

Well, duh. This is about as shocking as George Michael getting caught with drugs again, or as Simon Cowell put it, “Wow, that’s a shock. It’s like being told Santa Clause isn’t real — unbelievable.” But you know a bunch of Claymates are going to be all, “I feel deceived! My world is collapsing!” Get over it, people. He likes penis and so do you. You should be a happy little family.

Clay comes out in this week’s edition of People, and is featured on the cover with his new turkey baster baby Parker. His son is the reason he came out. “It was the first decision I made as a father,” Clay said. “I cannot raise a child to lie or to hide things. I wasn’t raised that way, and I’m not going to raise a child to do that.”

As for fan reaction, he says, “Whether it be having a child out of wedlock, or whether it be simply being a homosexual, it’s going to be a lot… I’ve never intended to lie to anybody at all… But if they leave, I don’t want them to leave hating me.”

PS - He still has his faith. “I still consider myself a born-again Christian, and I am absolutely comfortable with that, and comfortable with my salvation,” he says.

Gay-men, Clay. Gay-men.