Details emerge on return of Felicia Barton

The husband of Felicia Barton, who was put into the Top 36 Wednesday night after Joanna Pacitti was kicked out, spoke out today on the events and range of emotions leading up to the phone call from Idol producers telling her she was back in after being cut a month earlier. We can't imagine what this poor girl went through ... what a wild ride.

"Last night, we were at Freedom Fellowship’s Idol viewing party with about 150 other excited, wonderful people. As the show began, I could see Felicia’s eyes watering up as she sat, prepared to relive her Great Disappointment. It had been almost a month now, since she received the big “No” from the judges and we flew home, rejected. Trust me…our emotions and thoughts ran the gamut, as we tried desperately to process what had just occurred. What they didn’t show on last night’s episode is that Felicia was actually in a ‘sing-off’ with a 16 year old girl! Felicia sang “No One” by Alicia Keys, and she said she felt like it was her best performance ever, and then she listened from the hallway as the other girl give, what she felt, was a very average performance.

So you can understand Felicia’s response of ,”Really…are you sure?” when the judges told her that it was the end of the road. But it wasn’t the end of the road!!! And we knew it…we hadn’t been through all of this just to make the top 50! Don’t get me wrong. We are so humbled and grateful for the journey up that point. But we believe, with all of our heart, that this is the time and season for Felicia to take her place in the entertainment industry. And so, after a few days of grieving…we determined that Felicia’s Idol journey was far from over. We didn’t know how…we just knew it wasn’t! We also knew that there was a small precedent for people being brought back on the show as ‘wild cards’.

Felicia has this great little book called ‘Chicken Soup for the American Idol Soul’ with all kinds of inspiring stories, one of which was a girl name Carmen. Carmen didn’t even make it to the top 50, but she and her mom never stopped believing that she was meant to be on the show…and 3 months later, executive producer Ken Warwick called her back for a wild card episode, and she went on to finish in the top 10! With every fiber of our being, we believed that Carmen’s story was to be our story (remember, this is a month ago!)

And so we took action! With the help of our friends, we began taking every step that we possibly could to prepare Felicia for her shot at celebrity. She went to her hairdresser and said “Give me a rock star haircut!”. God provided an incredible personal trainer and a cosmetic dentist…and both of them have given Felicia the “star treatment”. Felicia has been more driven and assertive, in the last 3 weeks, than I’ve seen her be since giving birth to Malachi!! We did a brand, new photo shoot and even started writing and recording some new music! And then we got the call!!!

Sure enough, right smack in the middle of the 150 viewers that were gathered at Freedom to watch the show, Ken Warwick (executive producer for Idol) called Felicia’s cell phone. She ran into the girl’s bathroom to take the call, and she was bouncing off the walls when Ken told her to pack her bags, because she was now in the top 36!!!! He also told her not to tell a soul until they made it public the next day. So we had to finish out the night as if she never got the call! Of course, we awoke this morning to a media firestorm…with Felicia at the center of it! And now it’s time for her to go back to Hollywood and take the competition by storm! It’s going to be the ultimate underdog story when she becomes the next American Idol!!! Thanks so much for your continued support."

Read the original story about the Top 36 swap.