14 DAY TRIAL // One of the most touching auditions on this week’s American Idol was that of Matt Farmer, a 26-year-old father of one who was portrayed as a war hero of sorts. He made it through to the next stage but, in the meantime, he’s also been exposed as a fraud.
Below, embedded at end of this article, is Farmer’s audition video.
He says, and the background story confirms it, that he was deployed to Iraq, where he was injured when an IED (improvised explosive device) accidentally went off.
After the accident, he was diagnosed with TBI or Traumatic Brain Injury and put on a treatment that was believed to have made him infertile.
However, less than 7 months after hearing this heartbreaking news, he found out that his girlfriend was pregnant. He came to the audition with his 3-year-old daughter Cadence, whom he refers to as a miracle child.
As the video will show, Farmer sang Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come” and impressed the judges, all of whom voted for him to be on the next round.
However, nothing of what he told producers of the show was true, as he finally admits in a statement to Guardian Of Valor, a website that exposes frauds like Farmer. We should also note that, before this statement, Farmer tried to lay all the blame on the AI producers for twisting his story without his authorization.
“Everything you have read is correct. It was ALL lies. I in fact HAVE lied since a younger age and had a problem with it. I am coming out and making a statement (even though I was instructed not to) because i DO want to come clean. Just so everyone knows I’m not reviving any sort of disability for Tbi,” he writes.
He was never in Afghanistan, was never a sniper and was never injured in an IED explosion. More likely, some of the men he served in the Army with say for the same website, his fertility issues stem from associating strong acne medication with alcohol.
“I was told to keep quiet and not talk to anyone, and I have decided that what’s best for me and my family is to come out and end the insanity. I indeed have many many things to work with and need to get alot of help doing it. Again I appologize to everyone that I have come across and hurt or lied too,” Farmer writes.
“I at no time was a sniper, was never deployed to Afghanistan, did a single tour in Iraq, and was never at any time hit or wounded by an IED,” he adds.
He’s no longer with American Idol, saying he was out of the show on the first day of the Hollywood stage. He doesn’t detail whether he was sent home because he lied about his past or simply because he was eliminated.