NEWS'American Idol' Audience Member Claims She Was "Too Big" for the Front Row
April 12 2011, Published 7:16 a.m. ET
A female audience member from last week's American Idol results show is speaking out claiming she was kicked out of the front row for being "too big."
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Ashley Kauffman, a 19-year-old from Riverside, Calif., tells Radar Online that she and five of her female friends got free tickets to attend the filming of American Idol, but only three of her friends were seated in the front rows.
"There were two ladies and they kind of looked us up and down and I'm like, 'Okay, not a big deal,' " Ashley explained. "One of us was not in a great outfit and the lady said, 'Oh, I don't want shorts in front.' Then she looks at me and goes, 'Oh no, you're just too big, too heavy to be in front!'"
"I was kind of taken aback," Ashley, who is 5-foot-2 and weighs about 150 pounds, said. "I'm not that big, but I understand I was bigger than the girls I was with. But I was like, 'Wow, way to hit a low blow.'"
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Instead of being moved behind her friends to the second row like she thought, Ashley says she was seated in the last row.
"I took it really hard, I'm very insecure about my weight anyways, but having this happen I had to stop myself from crying and having it ruin my night completely," she said. "But that didn't stop it from being in my head the whole time."
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"I felt so belittled as a person because of my weight," Ashley added. "They ended up putting two girls who were super skinny and wearing little dresses in the front row where we would of been sitting. The only people that weren't really skinny were the families in that section."
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Ashley says she did receive an apology — from an usher.
"When I told him what was said to me, he apologized," she explained. "He said, 'I'm sorry they said those things to you, I guess that's the reasons why they decided not to have you guys together'."
Still, Ashley thinks her story needs to be told.
"It needs to be known that they are making people feel like this," she said. "I don't want to be walked all over. I want something to happen. I want them to see 'Hey, look, this is how your people are acting there,' when you're not supposed to discriminate against anybody."
