The American Idol Quitting Controversy--NEW THEORY

Here's a quote from the end of my post about the whole controversy surrounding Mario Vazquez leaving American Idol:

Who knows...maybe this was a big publicity stunt on his part. After all, he wouldn't be in the spotlight as much at this stage of the game unless he left the show. I've seen stories on him on every entertainment news program. He's appeared on Regis and Kelly and my sister and I watched as he read the "Top Ten Reasons Why I Quit American Idol" on The Late Show with David Letterman...and only got to number four before leaving the stage. More people now know Mario's name than they did before. And by making his "personal reasons" purposely vague, he has encouraged people like myself to wonder what the hell they really are. Could he really be that savvy?

Well, after reading this article on MSN, I think that Mario is that savvy. In fact, he's more savvy than I gave him credit for.

I now believe the whole thing was a calculated move. In hindsight, I feel like that I, the Communication Studies major, was seriously sucked in.

I think Mario never wanted to win American Idol. He knew he was talented. After all, he did sing backup on Michael Jackson's last album. Many backup singers for Michael Jackson (and in general) go on to greater things without entering a competition like American Idol (like Sheryl Crow, for example). It seems like he decided to try out and see how far he could go. Once he reached the Top 12, and people started to know his name, he could drop out of the show and gain a ton of publicity. No one had ever dropped out willingly at that stage of the game before.

Then, by stating "personal reasons" for dropping out of the competition, it would make people want to know more about him, keeping his name in the public eye. Saying the reasons were personal would allow him not to divulge his plans because personal things are allowed to stay private. If he had told his plans from the get go, it would make him look incredibly self-serving. And now, by hiring lawyers to get him out of the restricitive AI contract, he can use the publicity he's generated to likely get himself a favorable record deal. American Idol, in essence, got punk'd.

This new theory makes a lot more sense. Mario is 28 years old...old enough to know how to use situations to his advantage. Most of the other contestants, especially the 16 and 17 year olds, wouldn't be able to pull something like this off. I'm not mad at Mario...he has/had a lot of people fooled, including me. I wish him all the best with this clever, but risky endeavor. But then again, if I was (probably) wrong about the whole gay thing, could I be wrong about this too? I guess I'll have to keep up with the news to find out.