Janelle Arthur is the first female contestant to be eliminated on the twelfth season of American Idol. The 23-year-old Tennessee native was given the boot Thursday, Apr. 18, after landing in the bottom two with Kree Harrison.
"I'm sad because I wasn't ready to go," Arthur told Us Weekly post-show. "I was already thinking about songs for next week and I think it would've been really good."
The judges chose not to save Arthur from elimination, though the aspiring musician had hoped they might. "I thought they were going to use the save, but not on me," she said. Luckily, Arthur received words of support from her idol, Dolly Parton. "It was really cool," she said of hearing from the music legend. "I would really love to just talk to her."
Arthur's favorite moment during the competition, she recalled, was singing Parton's "Dumb Blonde" during the Apr. 17 episode. "I had so much fun. That was the most fun I had on the stage, mainly because I brought that to life," she said. "That arrangement had been in my head, and just to know two days before that performance, I explained it to them and what came from that is cool."
The ousted contestant hopes to use her exposure from American Idol to land a recording contract. "As long as I'm making music, I feel like it's only up from here," Arthur told Us. "I would love to get a record deal if that's what's meant to be, but I love to write, so I hope to get more things out there."
