After Devin Velez was voted off American Idol last week, Nicki Minaj went on a Twitter rant against him. Now Devin is responding to those attacks — is he hurt by what she said? Also in today’s Roundup, following the April 4 results show, additional behind-the-scenes footage will air showing what happens after someone is voted off. And Colton Dixon has received a huge boost in album sales following his return appearance on Idol.
Devin Velez Responds to Nicki Minaj’s Twitter Rant
No one’s safe from the wrath of Nicki Minaj. There’s still tension between her and Mariah Carey — she told MTV she has “a lot of self-control” around Mariah and things aren’t any better between them — and now the controversial judge has attacked one of the season 12 contestants.
It started after Devin Velez was voted off. Nicki took to Twitter to share her frustrations, starting with: “Be mad @ AMERICA when u get sent home. The JUDGES are the ones who FOUGHT for America to get the opp to VOTE 4 U!!!” She followed that up with: “America r the ‘potential’ fans…u MUST win then over. ‘Saves’ are bull**** and they know it. … Fought for ALL of you. So just simply b gracious.”
Nicki then went on to say that since Curtis Finch, Jr. wasn’t saved, don’t look for her to save anybody else, or at least not any of the guys.
Devin responded to her tweets: “That moment when an adult stoops down to the 3rd grade level… LOL grow up Hun, I’ve got songs to write.” He must have received a warning from FOX, because this tweet was soon deleted.
Nicki’s rant may have started after Devin criticized her while talking to the media following his elimination. But now in a new interview with TV Guide, Devin is responding directly to the attacks: “Comments were made that I was being ungrateful … Nicki Minaj is Nicki Minaj and she has a very strong opinion, a very strong voice. … I might have fed the fire and I did apologize afterward, and I did take out a couple of tweets, just because my reputation is everything at this point. I’m nowhere near her star power or star level. So I’m not going to sit here and argue. I love her no matter what. I think she’s a great judge. I do have respect for her. Her fans [are] what I was most worried about. Her tweets didn’t bother me. It’s her fans that went crazy. I’m okay.”
How do you feel about the situation? I’m sure everyone would agree Nicki went overboard in her tweets, but did Devin deserve it?
Idol to Air Footage After Results Show
American Idol is introducing a new feature that will allow viewers watching FOX to see additional footage even after the show is done airing. It’s called “Still Rolling,” and during episodes of New Girl and The Mindy Project on Thursday, April 4, video clips will air giving us a behind-the-scenes look at what goes down after someone is eliminated.
Shannon Ryan, FOX’s EVP of marketing and communications, told The Hollywood Reporter, “When we locked the New Girl and Mindy episodes behind Idol, the marketing team tried to come up with some ideas that we thought could help pull some of those Idol viewers through the night and into the comedies. We thought it could be interesting to bring that concept — seeing those sort of raw, real, intimate post-show moments and reactions — to our air in these quick pops throughout the night.”
How will all this go down? According to Ryan Seacrest, “Using Idol’s EVS system, a special ops team will capture the line feed, select the 15-second snippets that we want to highlight, and then quickly get that back to the control room. There, lower third messaging will be dropped in, and it will be fed over to our network operations. Needless to say, getting this shot and onto our air so quickly is a huge technical undertaking and requires a lot of close collaboration. Ultimately, it will happen super quickly, so it’s both nerve-wracking and exciting!”
Tune in to FOX at around 9:14pm for the first behind-the-scenes look, with the remaining two airing around 9:44pm and 9:52pm. As of right now, it sounds like “Still Rolling” is only set for this week. But if FOX finds an increase in viewers for their 9pm shows, I’m sure they’ll continue it next week when Glee returns.
Album Sales: Idol Gives Colton Dixon a Boost
It’s a given at this point that when an alum (or any guest performer, for that matter) returns to perform on American Idol, they’ll receive a big boost in album sales. And the past week was no different, with sales of Colton Dixon’s A Messenger increasing 291%. Here are the top selling Idols of the week, as well as debut numbers for two runners-up, courtesy of USA Today:
Phillip Phillips’ The World from the Side of the Moon sold 21,000 units (Total Sales: 813,000)
Colton Dixon’s A Messenger sold 14,000 units (Total: 76,000)
Kelly Clarkson’s Greatest Hits — Chapter One sold 14,000 units (Total:355,000)
Carrie Underwood‘s Blown Away sold 11,000 units (Total: 1.377 million)
Crystal Bowersox and David Archuleta’s new albums debuted last week. Crystal’s All That for This sold 8,000 units, and David’s No Matter How Far started off with 5,000 units.
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(Images courtesy of FOX)
Staff Writer, BuddyTV
Jeff Dodge, a graduate of Western Washington University, has been a TV news editor for many years and has had the chance to interview multiple reality show stars, including Randy Jackson, Nick Cannon, Heidi Klum, Mel B and John Cena.
