Editing Corey Clark (section)

==''American Idol''==
===Performances===

{| class="wikitable"
|-
!Week
!Theme
!Song Sung
!Artist
!Order Performed
!Status
|-
|Semifinals
|Group #4
|"[[Foolish Heart (song)|Foolish Heart]]"
|[[Steve Perry]]
|8
|Advanced
|-
|Top 12
|Motown
|"[[This Old Heart of Mine (Is Weak for You)]]"
|[[The Isley Brothers]]
|9
|Safe
|-
|Top 11
|Songs of the Cinema
|"[[Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)]]" ''from "[[Against All Odds (1984 film)|Against All Odds]]"''
|[[Phil Collins]]
|1
|Bottom 2
|-
|Top 10
|Country Rock
|"[[Drift Away]]"
|[[Dobie Gray]]
|4
|Safe<br>Later disqualified
|}

===Controversies===
====Disqualification====
[[File:07CoreyClarkRubenStuddard.jpeg|thumb|right|Clark with [[Ruben Studdard]] in 2007.]]
During the ''American Idol'' competition, ''[[The Smoking Gun]]'' revealed that Clark had been arrested at his [[Topeka, Kansas]] home on October 12, 2002, after neighbors called police after hearing a commotion within the residence, including a girl yelling. Police arrived and questioned Clark and his 15-year-old sister Alysha, after which Clark became confrontational with the officers. Clark alleges police misconduct in handling the matter, asserting that he was beaten by the officers, who ultimately wrestled Clark to the pavement and handcuffed him behind his back.  After managing to get his handcuffed hands in front of him in the squad car, he was shown a taser and warned he would be shot with it if he continued to resist, at which point he relented. He was charged with misdemeanor battery on four police officers and his sister, and endangering the welfare of a child.  However both Clark and his sister Alysha have denied that he ever hit her, and Alysha echoed her brother's account of the way the situation transpired.<ref>[http://www.foxesonidol.com/cgi-bin/ae.pl?mode=1&article=article1147.art&page=1 "American Idol 2: Corey’s Story"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061023104615/http://www.foxesonidol.com/cgi-bin/ae.pl?mode=1&article=article1147.art&page=1 |date=2006-10-23 }}, foxesonidol.com, April 18, 2003</ref>

On December 4, days after Clark became one of the final 32 ''American Idol'' contestants, he was charged in Kansas District Court with resisting arrest, battery upon his sister, and criminal restraint. Clark ultimately pleaded "no contest" to "obstructing legal process" through a [[plea bargain|plea agreement]], and was sentenced to six months unsupervised [[probation]] and ordered to pay $116.00 [[United States dollar|USD]] in legal costs. Clark states in his book, "Initially no charges were filed against me, and I was refunded my $116.00 [[United States dollar|USD]] bond money after attending a November 11, 2002 court hearing back in Topeka."<ref>Clark; 2005; Chapter 4.</ref>  That December, after Clark had filled out his contracts for ''American Idol'' and was publicly named a semi-finalist on the show, the state [[district attorney]] elected to proceed with the case and filed charges against him.<ref>[http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/coreyidol1.html "Another 'American Idol' Scandal"], [[The Smoking Gun]]; June 19, 2003</ref>

According to ''American Idol'''s producers, Clark did not disclose his arrest record when joining the competition, although Clark maintains in his book ''American Paulatics'' that he spoke with them and with judge [[Paula Abdul]] about his legal troubles. Producers also explained that the background checks conducted on all contestants did not uncover his arrest because of a misspelling of Clark's name in the police report. Clark maintains that this could not be true, as all background checks are conducted via [[social security]] numbers, which Clark had provided to producers in his contract. The producers disqualified Clark from further participation in the competition nine hours after the story broke.<ref>[http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/coreyboot1.html "Statement Regarding Corey Clark and American Idol"]. [[The Smoking Gun]]. March 31, 2003</ref>

Clark believes that he was punished not for causing conflict with producers behind the scenes. According to Clark, after he made it to the twelve finalists' round, he and the other finalists were unduly pressured by producers to sign a contract, using one of two attorneys handpicked by the producers for representation, or be disqualified from the show. Clark and his fellow contestants' position was that having the producers select an attorney for them was a [[conflict of interest]], a conclusion they reached with the advice of Abdul, who had told Clark, "Look, if you can get six of your fellow contestants to stand up with you and say, 'We want our own attorney, we're not rolling with this stuff you want us to do,' they will not kick off the rest of the cast." The other contestants decided to support him in standing up to producers, and consulted with Abdul's lawyer, Howard Siegel, on her recommendation (though Clark maintains in his book that they did not know at the time that Siegel was one of Abdul's attorneys). Two weeks later, producers began asking Clark about his arrest record, and dismissed him from the show.<ref>Harris, Chris (May 6, 2005). [https://web.archive.org/web/20050630080636/http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1501446/20050506/clark_corey.jhtml?headlines=true "Corey Clark Says Paula Abdul 'Told Me She Loved Me'"]. MTV.com.</ref>

====Relationship with Paula Abdul====
Two years later, Clark began making allegations about his relationship with Abdul.<ref>[https://www.cbsnews.com/news/steamy-american-idol-allegations/ "Steamy 'American Idol' Allegations" Ex-Contestant Corey Clark Claims He Had Affair With Paula Abdul]; CBS.com; May 5, 2005</ref><ref>Walls, Jeannette. [https://www.today.com/popculture/ex-idol-contestant-claims-abdul-affair-wbna7591639 "Ex-‘Idol’ contestant claims Abdul affair"]; MSNBC.com; April 28, 2005</ref> Clark stated in his E-book, ''They Told Me to Tell the Truth, So...: The Sex, Lies and Paulatics of One of America's Idols'',{{Citation needed|date=May 2011}} and in a May 2005 interview with ''[[Primetime Live]]'' that ''Idol'' judge [[Paula Abdul]] took him under her wing, beginning on December 12, 2002, and coached him on how to succeed in the competition, including helping him select the right songs, clothes, and hairstyle, in order to avoid the show's "exploitation" of young hopefuls' careers like himself,<ref>[https://www.today.com/popculture/clark-wont-help-idol-verify-his-claims-wbna7740986 “Clark won’t help ‘Idol’ verify his claims”]; MSNBC.com/AP; May 5, 2005</ref> and that this mentorship developed into a three-month-long sexual relationship.<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGUUWaMRRYw&mode=related&search= Segment of "Fallen Idol"], Primetime Live's May 4, 2005 story on the scandal, from YouTube (Part 2 of 5).</ref>

Clark provided, as evidence of his relationship with Paula Abdul, a message that Abdul left on his voice mail, multiple eyewitness accounts of Clark and Abdul being intimate together in public places, accounts by Clark's parents of Abdul calling their home looking for Clark, a bottle of prescription strength cough medicine prescribed to Abdul in Clark's possession, and phone records of Abdul and Clark speaking to each other for several hours at a time during late night hours. Abdul dismissed Clark's claims as lies, saying that she would not "dignify Clark's claims with a response", explaining, "Not only do I never lie, I never respond to lies".<ref>[https://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/Entertainment/story?id=701186&page=1 “An Illicit Affair on 'American Idol'?: Ex-Contestant Says He Got Coaching From, Had Relationship With, Judge Paula Abdul”]; ABCNews.go.com; May 3, 2005</ref><ref>[http://www.livedaily.com/news/Briefly_James_Brown_Scott_Weiland_Paula_Abdul_Mindy_McCready-8123.html "Briefly: James Brown, Scott Weiland, Paula Abdul, Mindy McCready"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070125173632/http://www.livedaily.com/news/Briefly_James_Brown_Scott_Weiland_Paula_Abdul_Mindy_McCready-8123.html |date=2007-01-25 }}, LiveDaily.com story on Abdul's response to the ''Primetime Live'' story; May 6, 2005</ref> The show's other judges and some of the show's former contestants also expressed disbelief of Clark's claims, which Clark saw as an attempt by Abdul, the show, and the network to cover up the matter.

''Idol'' producer [[Nigel Lythgoe]], who was unimpressed with the evidence presented, called it "shoddy journalism".  Regarding Clark's possession of Abdul's phone number, Lythgoe said, "And I know for a fact that a lot of the contestants have got Paula's phone number and contact her and she contacts them. Paula's the den mother. ... I don't have a problem with that. She's been a star and now she can help them and that's more than Simon [Cowell]." Lythgoe also addressed Clark's claim that he sent Abdul a secret message by singing "I owe it all to you" on the show by explaining that the serenade was choreographed by the producers.  Lythgoe also questioned why it took two years for Clark to reveal his alleged affair with Abdul, fueling speculation that Clark was merely attempting to gain publicity for his upcoming album.<ref>Moss, Corey. [https://web.archive.org/web/20050508013650/http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1501383/20050505/abdul_paula.jhtml "'Idol' Producer Calls 'Primetime' Special 'Shoddy Journalism'"]; MTV.com; May 6, 2005</ref>

Clark denies that the timing of his revelation was part of a marketing ploy, asserting, "If I wanted publicity, I could have done it two years ago when they were first trying to defame my name." Clark states that Abdul and the producers engaged in a character assassination campaign that he could not afford to combat or ignore, and accused them of spreading falsehoods about him throughout the industry in order to ruin his career.<ref>Harris; May 6, 2005</ref> Other former contestants who came to publicly back Clark's claims included second season semi-finalist Nasheka Sidall, who, it was stated on ''Primetime Live,'' first heard "whispers" about the affair soon after her time on the show as a contestant,<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0Q1Gszjwyc Segment of "Fallen Idol", Primetime Live's May 4, 2005 story on the scandal, from YouTube (Part 4 of 5).]</ref> and fellow second season finalist [[Trenyce]], who corroborated Clark's claims on ''[[Showbiz Tonight]]''.<ref>[http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0507/29/sbt.01.html CNN.com transcript of an CNN’s Showbiz Tonight’s interview with Clark]</ref> Clark also points to the fact in his e-book that his ''Idol'' roommates, Ricky Smith and [[Ruben Studdard]], were never asked for their views on the validity of his claims,<ref>Moss, Corey. [https://web.archive.org/web/20071016194635/http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1505023/20050630/clark_corey.jhtml "Corey Clark Meeting With 'Idol' Producers Over Paula Flap"]; MTV.com; June 30, 2005</ref> but that [[American Idol (season 3)|third season]] winner [[Fantasia Barrino]] was questioned as to her opinion about Clark's allegations, which Clark saw as an attempt by Fox or its investigators to use Barrino's following to bias the public against Clark. As Clark states:

{{cquote|All I have to say about it is that I have neither personally met Fantasia Barrino, nor have I ever competed against her on the same season of ''Idol'', so there is no way that she could have accurately given a description to anybody, publicly or personally, about my or Paula's actions during my time as a contestant on ''American Idol''.<ref>Clark; 2005; Page 142.</ref>}}

In August 2005, after an internal investigation by an independent counsel appointed by Fox, which included interviews with Abdul, Clark and other witnesses, the investigators concluded that Clark's claims of a sexual relationship "have not been substantiated by any corroborating evidence or witnesses, including those provided by Mr. Clark, and Ms. Abdul expressly denies that any such relationship ever existed." The investigators further added that "Ms. Abdul acknowledges that she had telephone conversations with Mr. Clark while he was a contestant. Their accounts of those conversations, however, differ greatly and no evidence was uncovered to resolve the conflicts in their accounts."<ref>[http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/entertainment&id=3343548 "Paula Abdul to Remain an 'Idol' Judge"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120805135139/http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news%2Fentertainment&id=3343548 |date=2012-08-05 }}; 6ABC.com; August 13, 2005</ref> The network announced that Abdul could continue her judging duties on future seasons of ''American Idol'',<ref>[https://www.today.com/popculture/after-probe-paula-abdul-remain-idol-wbna8931265 "After probe, Paula Abdul to remain on ‘Idol’: Fox finds no proof of impropriety after ex-contestant alleged affair"]; MSNBC.com/Associated Press; August 24, 2005</ref> adding, "The line is whether it affects the outcome of the competition....It is the sanctity of the competition that is first and foremost."<ref>[https://www.imdb.com/news/sb/2005-07-29 "Paula Under Investigation by an "Independent Counsel"]; July 29, 2005</ref><ref>[http://www.eurweb.com/story/eur22649.cfm "Abdul Stiff-Arms Corey Clark Questions: ‘American Idol’ judges face reporters during audition stop in San Fran."] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927195918/http://www.eurweb.com/story/eur22649.cfm |date=2007-09-27 }}; EURweb.com September 30, 2005</ref>

In the [[American Idol (season 4)|fourth season]] finale of ''American Idol'', there was a [[parody]] of Clark's claims, in which judge [[Simon Cowell]] was alleged to be having an affair with himself. The parody was very close in plot to the ''Primetime Live'' story. Clark released a statement that the parody offended him, and was an "insult to the intelligence of the viewer".<ref>[https://www.today.com/popculture/corey-clark-didn-t-idol-spoof-wbna7994576 “Corey Clark didn't like 'Idol' spoof: Finale poked fun at former contestant’s allegations"]; MSNBC.com/Associated Press; May 26, 2005</ref>