“I was checking into the Nokia and I saw him limping in,” said O’Malley, who was in La La covering the finale for the radio station. “I thought, “Omigod, he’s in so much pain, he shouldn’t even be here.’ At the after-party he was just sitting the whole time except to get up for pictures. He looked to be in some serious pain.”
Phillips, who was crowned the 11th “American Idol” Wednesday night, has been battling kidney problems for most of the season. Early on, he was rushed to the hospital and nearly missed a show. He also didn’t do a couple of the Ford commercials with the rest of the contestants because of the kidney stones.
When Phillips went back to Georgia for the hometown visit two weeks ago, his family doctor advised him to get surgery immediately, but he held off until the end of “Idol.”
Overcome with pain, relief and joy, Phillips was unable to perform his new single, “Home,” at the close of the “Idol” finale. Instead, he broke down in tears and left the stage to embrace his family.
“He made every woman and girl in America fall in love with him at that moment, if they weren’t already,” O’Malley said. “When he walked by the judges and went to his parents, it was like, ‘Awwwwww, that’s so cute.’ ”
O’Malley said she also saw runner-up Jessica Sanchez at the “Idol” after-party, which is held in a huge converted tent on the roof of an adjoining parking garage, and the 16-year-old budding diva seemed to be taking the defeat in stride.
“I think she knows she’s going to have a great career even if she didn’t win,” O’Malley said. “She seemed relieved that it’s over.”
Also relieved was third-place finisher Joshua Ledet. The Louisiana church boy told O’Malley he couldn’t handle the stress of the competition.
“I asked him, ‘Don’t you want to win?’ and he said, ‘I don’t know. I know that’s what we’re here for but I’m so glad I don’t have to worry about the voting and the performances anymore, I can just have fun.’ ’’
And as for “Idol” judge Steven Tyler, who finally performed with his band, Aerosmith, on the finale, O’Malley said she ran into him near the Nokia elevator and he “wants to stay on the show for another year.”
Tyler’s tour of duty had caused problems with his bandmates, who refused to perform on the show last season. But O’Malley theorizes that with a new CD coming out and a tour this summer, the band finally caved into the “Idol” promotion machine.
“Every artist who performs on the show explodes the next day,” she said. “It’s such a fantastic promotional tool, I think Steven was finally able to convince them of that.”
