Before earning a chance to sing on the American Idol stage, Brooke White was trying to gain exposure by performing in Los Angeles clubs.
The Top 5 competitor, who was eliminated this week after singing Neil Diamond’s I’m A Believer and I Am … I Said, said she was trying to balance being a babysitter and doing her own thing career-wise.
“At the same time of being a nanny I was doing my best at trying to do the singer-songwriter thing,” said White, 24, from Mesa, Ariz. “I did do an independent album and performed around L.A. for a couple years … (but) that was pretty much it.”
For White on American Idol, being unable to spend time with her family and trying to learn new songs each week was overwhelming at times. Especially now that competitors were permitted to use instruments, too.
“I think there just has been something within me, when I thought I wasn’t able to keep going and you totally feel like you’re sinking, and then it’s like, ‘OK, swim,’ and you’ve got to,” she said.
When you’re given an opportunity of this magnitude, White added you have to make the best of it, even though it can be “incredibly difficult” at times.
Having been one of the lowest vote-getters several times wasn’t easy to grasp, but this time around White says she anticipated it would be her turn to say goodbye.
“It was in my gut and I thought I was strong, I really did. I felt like so grateful and happy and then, boom!, it hit me — this is done, this is over,” she said. “The finality of that phase, of the experience being over was sad. And then the fear of going back into the real world and what does the future hold, also is an excitement.”
