14 DAY TRIAL // On the Final Judgment round of the current season of American Idol, the three judges, Keith Urban, Jennifer Lopez, and Harry Connick Jr., decided to let Emkay Nobilette through to the final 15 and, in the process, wrote television history.
As you can see in the video above, Emkay came out publicly right before she was told she’d been allowed through to the next stage, so she is the first-ever openly gay contestant to compete for the title of American Idol and the big recording contract.
“I'm very obviously gay, and there are always gonna be people in America … who will definitely hate me, but I think that in the last two years there have been a lot of things that have really changed that,” she says, when told she’s very unlike the “typical” American Idol hopeful.
Still, the judges agreed with her that the world is indeed changing and, given her powerful performances so far, decided to have her through to the next round.
“The world is changing, and we think you could be an American Idol,” Jennifer Lopez told her, with tears welling up in her eyes.