Years before hitting it big, numerous music stars have tried to jump-start their careers with appearances on singing competitions like American Idol.
The popular, long-running reality series, which is gearing up to air its season 23 finale on Sunday, has notoriously welcomed auditions from several celebrities before they became famous.
But few have made it past the auditions, proving that even one (or two) failed attempts don’t define a person’s entire career.
Here are 11 of the biggest stars you likely forgot auditioned for American Idol.
Benson Boone
Perhaps one of the most recent American Idol successes is rising pop star Benson Boone, 21, who actually pulled out of the competition early to forge his own music career. Featured on season 19 of the series in 2021, Boone wowed judges Katy Perry, Luke Bryan and Lionel Richie with his soulful rendition of Aidan Martin’s “Punchline.”
Perry immediately predicted that Boone would win the series, saying: “I mean, I’m going to tell you something that you may not believe, but if you believe it, it might happen. I mean, I literally see American Idol and I see you, and I see you winning American Idol if you want.”
However, the then-18-year-old voluntarily exited before the season’s live shows, later explaining on a 2022 episode of the Zach Sang Show that he quit because he didn’t want his talent defined by his time on American Idol.
It wasn’t long until Boone released his viral hit “Beautiful Things” in 2024, helping him to land a New Artist Grammy nomination at the February ceremony.
Bebe Rexha
Four-time Grammy-nominated singer Bebe Rexha once waited hours with her mom to audition for American Idol. “It was always my dream to be on American Idol,” she revealed on a 2018 episode of Live with Kelly & Ryan.
Though the “I’m a Mess” hitmaker didn’t make it through the preliminary rounds of auditions, she’s since returned to the show twice as a guest mentor.
“10 years ago, my mother and I waited 10 hours on [sic] line to audition for American Idol. I didn’t make it through. This year I’m mentoring!” Rexha, 35, announced ahead of her first guest appearance in 2018. She later returned for the show’s 20th season as a guest mentor, alongside country star and former American Idol hopeful Jimmie Allen.
Amber Riley
At 17, Glee star Amber Riley tried out for American Idol but was rejected instantly by the producers.
“It [felt] like my world had ended,” she told Jason Lee on his talk show in 2024.
“We had driven all the way to San Francisco — my mom, my dad and my sister. It was freezing cold. We waited hours and hours and hours just to be seen, and it was an immediate ‘no,’” she said, revealing that she auditioned with Chaka Khan’s “Sweet Thing.”
Riley, now 39, said the rejection “devastated” her, and that it took her years to regain her confidence to return to music. In 2009, she landed her breakout role as Mercedes Jones on Ryan Murphy’s Glee, where she got to belt classics like “Bust Your Windows,” “Disco Inferno,” and “I Will Always Love You.”
Naya Rivera
Another Glee alum to have auditioned forAmerican Idol is the late Naya Rivera, at the insistence of her father.
“For years he would always say, ‘You should audition for the show,’ and I never wanted to,” she recounted on a 2013 episode of The Talk. “The one year we drove up to San Fran and I didn’t make it past the first round.”
Taking the rejection in stride, Rivera reused her American Idol audition song — “Bees” by the Bee Gees — for her next big audition that would land her the role of Santana Lopez on Glee.
Colbie Caillat
Long before Colbie Caillat became a singing sensation known for folksy ballads like “Bubbly” and “Fallin’ For You,” she was a two-time American Idol reject.
“I auditioned for American Idol twice. I actually came in with this song, ‘Bubbly,’ but I wasn’t ready at all,” the singer revealed in 2018 when she was invited back as a mentor. “I had a lot of stage fright and I realized I had a lot of work to do with myself,” Caillat explained.
Chrissy Metz
One of Chrissy Metz’s first forays into show business was her audition for American Idol. The This Is Us star, 41, remembered the long and arduous process on a 2020 episode of SiriusXM’s local Los Angeles radio show, sharing that it took place at the San Diego Stadium.
Metz recalled auditioning with “Heavy” from Dreamgirls, which ultimately got her through a few preliminary rounds before landing her an opportunity to perform in the final round for producers Nigel Lythgoe and Simon Fuller, who shot her down.
“Thank goodness!” the Emmy-nominated actor exclaimed, reflecting on the “very different” path she ended up going down. “It always [works out],” Metz acknowledged. “It always does.”
Kane Brown
Inspired by the success of his high school choir friend — country music star and American Idol season 10 runner-up Lauren Alaina — Kane Brown tried his luck.
He first auditioned for American Idol, but was turned away because “they didn’t need another Scotty McCreery,” the “What Ifs” singer recounted in a 2016 interview with Billboard.
It wasn’t long afterwards that he auditioned for The X Factor USA and was selected to join the third season. However, before the competition got underway, producers “tried to put me in a boy band, so I quit. I went home and did my own American Idol with covers online,” Brown said.
Maren Morris
To this day, Maren Morris still doesn’t understand why she didn’t make it past American Idol’s open call auditions in 2007.
“The Bones” artist was around 16 when she showed up for the open call auditions at the Cowboy Stadium in Dallas, Texas. “I sang Chaka Khan’s ‘Sweet Thing’ — which is still my karaoke song,” Morris said on a 2023 episode of The Howard Stern Show.
Asked if her rejection was due to a bad vocal day, the singer-songwriter, 35, emphatically responded: “No! I killed it!... I nailed it. I did not have a bad day. I did after that,” she quipped. The Grammy-winning singer additionally revealed that she had also been denied by The Voice and America’s Got Talent.
“I’m very lucky that they did say no,” she added, “because I was not ready to be in the limelight or have any sort of public-facing anything. The music was not there; my voice was still maturing, even though it was good at the time, I just hadn’t found it yet. And I would’ve been a f***ing nightmare [as a] teenage-signed artist.”
Tori Kelly
Tori Kelly competed on the show’s ninth season at just 16. “American Idol is huge to me,” the then-high schooler told cameras ahead of her televised audition. “This is like at the top, this is crazy for me, and I really want it, really bad.”
For her audition, she performed John Mayer’s “Gravity” a cappella. Though her voice didn’t impress judge Simon Cowell, who wrote it off as “annoying,” she secured the support of the remaining judges: Victoria Beckham, Randy Jackson and Kara DioGuardi, who enthusiastically sent her through to Hollywood Week. However, Kelly didn’t end up advancing to the Top 24.
Just two years later, her career took off after she released a cover of Frank Ocean’s “Thinkin Bout You,” which quickly went viral. She’s now a three-time Grammy-winner.
Hillary Scott
Lady A co-founder Hillary Scott was snubbed twice by American Idol producers.
Appearing on a 2012 episode of HLN, the singer, 39, recalled “shedding a few tears” after the rejections, “knowing that I hadn’t performed at my best because I was so nervous.”
“I had never done any kind of audition like that before and so — if anyone has ever gone and auditioned — it’s a lot of pressure and there’s thousands and thousands of people in line [trying] to make it down to what will be a final 12,” Scott said.
The nine-time Grammy-winner eventually had her American Idol moment — twice — when she and her Lady A bandmates were invited to perform their hit singles “Need You Now” and “Just A Kiss” on the show in 2010 and 2011, respectively.
“Truthfully, it was pretty validating standing up there,” she admitted.
Lauren Daigle
Christian music singer Lauren Daigle was dealt three devastating American Idol nos. The first was in 2010, when she was axed before the Top 24 of season nine were selected. She returned the next year, but failed to make it to Hollywood Week. Her final attempt was in 2012 for season 11, where she made it to the Las Vegas round before being cut.
Despite the continued rejection, she persevered. After the first “no,” she told Cosmopolitan in 2019: “I remember thinking, ‘My whole plan has just flipped upside down...’
“I knew right then, sitting in that moment, I’m going to have to decide whether I’m going to get back up and start trying or if I’m gonna let that just determine the course of my life,” Daigle, 32, said.
In February, the Louisiana native performed “America the Beautiful” at the 2025 Super Bowl. She’s also gone on to win two of six total Grammy nominations.
The three-hour American Idol season 23 finale airs Sunday, May 18 at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.
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