Another night of American Idol saw another contestant dropping out of the competition. It’s the second consecutive night a singing hopeful exits the ABC reality series after Sara Beth Liebe opted to quit the show a night before.
Hollywood Week ended with a shock as Kaya Stewart announced she was leaving the competition. She was supposed to duet Adam Lambert’s “Whataya Want From Me” with Fire. However, when the girls took the stage, Stewart told the judges she was abandoning her partner.
“I have a little announcement to make,” Stewart told the judges Katy Perry, Luke Bryan and Lionel Richie. “I got sick at the beginning of Hollywood Week and I have been trying to push myself and keep going. During this performance, I got to work with Fire and it was such a great experience.”
Stewart continued, “She’s so talented and so incredible and we bonded so much but I realized I wasn’t able to give 100 percent. So, I’ve decided to not perform but Fire is going to perform and I’m really grateful that I got to be here and thank you guys but I’m not going to be performing.”
Perry asked Stewart if she was leaving the competition to which she answered, “Yes. So me not performing today means I’m no longer going to be in the competition.”
Stewart then started to cry and said she had to leave. She walked off the stage leaving Fire broken and on the verge of tears.
When Perry asked Fire how she felt, the contestant started to cry and said, “It’s been really stressful. It was a lot of stress on me to learn a different arrangement and then just come out here…”
The judges then asked the other contestants if anyone wanted to duet with Fire and Jayna Elise volunteered to join her on stage.
Fire got emotional during the performance and the judges saw her struggle on stage making them all cry during the performance.
“I’m proud of you,” Perry told Fire after wiping off tears from her face. “You’re growing little by little. You can’t control a lot but you can control yourself. And you can control your future. Thank you for standing up here and continuing to try, thank you for swinging, thank you for not forfeiting, thank you for fighting.”
Perry then dropped that Fire was going to be able to continue onto the next round.
Watch the moment in the video below.