In case you’ve forgotten that there was a point where people actually gave a sh-t about American Idol, allow us to take you back to a simpler time and place, when it was Ryan Seacrest, not Mark Zuckerberg, who decided the outcome of our country’s most hotly-contested elections.
The year was 2006, and Taylor Hicks was making headlines for being young, yet looking old, not unlike how Katharine McPhee is now making headlines for looking young and marrying old.
Anyway, Taylor and Katharine were neck-and-neck throughout their time on the show, but in the end, he came away with the coveted title of American Idol champion.
The win didn’t exactly do wonders for his career, but we’ll get to that later.
McPhee and Hicks are back in the news today thanks to a mild feud that’s revealed some long-simmering tension.
As part of a voter registration drive leading up to November’s midterm elections, McPhee tweeted a photo of herself standing next to Hicks and captioned it with a not-so-subtle jab at her former rival:
“Voting matters,” the actress captioned the pic, complete with upside-down smiley face emoji.
As you can see, Hicks was quick to fire back with a jab of his own, tweeting:
“You’re right, voting DOES matter! But you’re a little late to the party, Kat.”
Not exactly Biggie vs. Pac, but a mildly entertaining beef made all the more amusing by the fact that neither Hicks nor McPhee has been lighting the charts on fire in the years since their Idol season.
In fact, neither of them has scored a hit.
Katharine’s gone on to a more high-profile career thanks to roles on Scorpion and other shows that play ‘round-the-clock in retirement home common rooms.
These days she’s best known for her engagement to David Foster, as well as for her creepy tendency to refer to his daughters as her kids, even though two of them are older than Katharine.
As for Taylor … well, he’s not exactly killing the game, but he has scored a gig hosting something called State Plate on something called the INSP channel.
The funniest part of all of this is that Taylor and Kat’s season introduced the world to Chris Daughtry and Kellie Pickler, both of whom went on to more successful careers.
Perhaps one of those two should sound off on this situation.
“You’re right, Taylor and Kat, voting does matter … but not as much as how you spend your money,” Daughtry could tweet.
Now, that would be a valuable lesson on the inner-workings of both the music industry and American democracy.
