Hometown: Point Pleasant, NJ
Audition City: New York
American Idol Season 6 - 15th place
Antonella Barba was born on November 26, 1986 in Point Pleasant, New Jersey. Raised largely in that same place, Barba was born to parents Vincenzo and Valerie, and has three younger siblings, two of whom are sisters and one of whom is a brother. Prior to achieving fame via her voice Barba was attending The Catholic University of America in Washington, taking courses in Architecture.
Barba’s main source of fame came in 2007 when, having been urged to participate thanks to her voice, she appeared during the American Idol New York auditions of that year. She went on alongside her friend Amanda Collucio, singing “Free” by Deniece Williams after her friend was finished singing “Crazy” by Patsy Cline. Barba was praised by Randy, Paula and Simon and equal measures and dubbed superior vocally than her friend, who claimed to have received vocal lessons prior to auditioning. Both girls managed to grab golden tickets to Hollywood.
Barba managed to outlive friend Collucio, however – the latter was cut before she ever got to the top 40 contestants, while Barba managed to make it into the top 24 after several weeks of testing.
Unfortunately while Barba was in the contest a series of compromising photographs of her appeared online and in newspapers, including photographs of Barba in a wet t-shirt contest and others of her topless on a beach. The pictures received mainstream attention very quickly and seemed to overshadow Barba’s work for some time. Collucio has since spoken out against the photos, saying that the sexually explicit amongst them are digital fakes. Most of these pictures are still readily available online.
Though Barba managed to make it to the top 24 her American Idol odyssey ended soon after, as she was not chosen as one of the top twelve contestants to continue on into the final weeks of the show. She was not dismissed from the show as a result of the compromising photos, which was a controversy in and of itself: in the second season another contestant, Frenchie Davis, was kicked out of the contest because a topless photo of her emerged among the media and online. Davis has since expressed relief that Barba didn’t go through the same debacle as herself but also hoped that something would be done to make up for the humiliation she went through. Protestors have since argued that the dismissal came along racial lines, and that Davis was booted because she was black while Davis was allowed to stay on because she was white.
At any rate Barba didn’t make it past the top 16, though she didn’t get a few chances to showcase her skills in a more independent forum than in earlier rounds of the show – when in the top 24 she got the chance to sing “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing”, in the top 20 she sang “Because You Loved Me” and her final performance was that of “Put Your Records On” in the top 16.
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