David Archuleta Says American Idol Experience Was Miserable & Traumatic

David Archuleta secured the runners up position on the American Idol season 7 back in 2008. He was placed behind David Cook that season which launched the prologue of his successful career. Despite his fame through American Idol, David has got complicated feelings about the reality show.

Following his American Idol run, Archuleta has released eight albums of his own. He featured cameos on television shows like Hannah Montana and iCarly. He even toured with Demi Lovato. That’s how successful his career had been since the American Idol launch.

However, in a recent interview with Variety, Archuleta opened up about his true experience on American Idol. He expressed that he had to cope with becoming a household name as a shy teenager from Utah. He could never figure out why tens of millions of Americans were constantly pushing him up to stay in the competition. He said,

“I felt so disconnected from everything. Like, 13 years later, I’m piecing together what actually was going on. But it’s still a process because I still don’t understand why people were so into it.”

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Archuleta further revealed how most of the finalists had mental breakdowns at some point or another during their time on the show. Archuleta himself defined his experience to be “miserable” and “traumatic.”

“I get afraid to blame things on ‘American Idol’ because something in me is programmed to say, ‘I have to be grateful, because where would I be without it?’ ‘You can’t trust anyone anymore, not even your own family.’ That’s what we were told. It was like some weird grooming process, from the very first audition, the way that they were speaking to us, kind of like, ‘you’re powerless little bugs. If you step out of line, then you’re out of here, and you’re going to lose this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.’”

Archuleta talks about this psychological control that American Idol had over the contestants. They had to stay by the routine and follow the script. He even stated that his own dad was vilified. It was as if poor little Archuleta had an evil dad and the audience will do anything in their power to protect him.

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