“American Idol” Boss Claims Pia Toscano Never Led Voting, Was Not “Frontrunner”

Regardless of the commentary itself, nearly every “American Idol” fan, critic and judge who weighed in on Pia Toscano’s surprise elimination last Thursday used the term “frontrunner” to describe the powerhouse’s vocalist’s perceived status in the competition.

But according to showrunner Nigel Lythgoe, that term, surprisingly, should never have been applied to Toscano.

“I know the [voting] results, so I know she was never a frontrunner,” explained Lythgoe in a video for Yahoo! Music.

While some are accusing Lythgoe of merely doing “damage control” to calm the fan outrage, there is some plausibility to the notion that she was never a strong vote-getter. Central to that suggestion is the fact that with so many other finalists still in the competition, one would have been able to avoid the bottom three these past few weeks without a significant number of votes. Since the fans only learn of the lowest vote-getters, there would be no obvious distinction between first place and fifth or sixth place.

Plus, as Headline Planet noted, there were various reasons why Pia Toscano might have struggled to click with voters, some of which had nothing to do with a “fluke” situation last week.