Happy Ides of March, y’all! Time for another edition of Only in Jersey!
If it’s filming in Jersey, takes place in Jersey, or is about celebs from Jersey, you will find it here.
So, as expected last night, in the wake of revelations that contestant Jermaine Jones had a violent criminal past and several outstanding warrants for his arrest, “American Idol” kicked the Pine Hill native to the curb. During a sit-down with producers Nigel Lythgoe and Ken Warwick in the episode, Jermaine said he had a reason why he didn’t divulge his run-ins with the law. “I just was scared, nervous,” he revealed. “I didn’t want to get judged, I didn’t want to get penalized for anything that happened in the past.” And while the producers said they would’ve worked with him had he been honest from the get-go, to find out about it after the fact was unacceptable. “We are not allowed to have anybody that has an outstanding warrant against them on the program and you’ve got four of them against you,” Nigel told Jermaine. The segment concluded with a rehearsal clip of Jermaine singing “Somewhere Out There.” It was a sad finish to a promising start. But perhaps Jermaine will find that New Jersey is the “somewhere out there, out where dreams come true.”
Happy Hump Day! Time for another edition of Only in Jersey!
If it’s filming in Jersey, takes place in Jersey, or is about celebs from Jersey, you will find it here.
Jermaine Jones: Thanks for misrepresenting New Jersey!/Photo credit Fox
Reality television and drama go hand-in-hand, no doubt. And there’s plenty o’ drama to go around these days on “American Idol.” Remember Jersey contestant Jermaine Jones, the show’s “gentle giant”? People reports that he will be quitting the show during tonight’s telecast. In a tweet last night that has since been deleted, Jermaine wrote, “Awww I will no longer b on the show.” TMZ goes a step further, saying the show’s producers discovered Jermaine has a criminal past that he had lied about. The Pine Hill native reportedly was arrested twice last year, and one of those arrests was violent in nature. On top of that, Jermaine apparently lied to police, giving them fake names each time he was arrested. Andthere are also outstanding warrants for his arrest. This news comes on the heels of reports that Jermaine’s story of his dad abandoning him as a kid are untrue. (His dad told TMZ that that wasn’t the case at all and that he sees his son regularly.) All of this raised the producers’ suspicions, and they started looking into Jermaine’s background more closely. And here we are. I guess the only question remaining is how much the show will reveal tonight (8 p.m., Fox) and what its explanation will be for Jermaine’s sudden departure. That leaves Kinnelon native Elise Testone the sole Jerseyan contestant left. Hopefully she will be able to impress the judges more than her next-to-last-place finish last week.
Ava Gacser is a freelance writer in Central New Jersey. She is a former television columnist and features writer for several Gannett-owned daily newspapers in New Jersey.
Ava is an avid couch potato with a special affinity for reality TV, and she can't believe how many shows feature New Jersey residents!
She was a member of the Television Critics Association from 2005 to 2010.
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