"American Idol" hit Detroit on Wednesday, the show's first round of auditions in the Motor City since way back in season two. That visit was best remembered (in Detroit, at least) for Randy Jackson's quip that he felt the "Mo" had left the "Town," but things went better this time around.
In all, 40 Golden Tickets were handed out in Detroit, 20 of them to contestants from Michigan. The show featured the full audition of Marrialle Sellars, the 17-year-old from Indianapolis whose audition was teased at the beginning of this year's season opener.
Sellars' audition closed out Wednesday's episode, and her version of Bruno Mars' "Grenade" exploded in the judge's room. "You are gonna be a nightmare for the other competitors in this competition," Harry Connick Jr. told her, while Jennifer Lopez compared her to a cross between Rihanna and Miley Cyrus. (Lopez left out the part that Sellars has Beyoncé's eyes, too.)
Sellars was handed a Golden Ticket — two, in fact — but not before she followed Connick's orders and said dead into one of the cameras, "My name is Marialle Sellars and I plan on being the next 'American Idol.' " And so far, she's emerging as the season's frontrunner.
But there were a handful of contestants in Detroit that plan on giving Sellars a run for her money. First, there was Maurice Townsend, a 26-year-old father of four and a music minster from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Townsend's audition of John Legend's "So High" was so polished and professional that Connick remarked that he's the "one who should have recorded" ...
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