Spoiler: Rumored Hollywood Contestant Joanna Pacitti Totally Outed by the New York Post
The New York Post, no doubt picking up the story from Vote For the Worst, (but not giving them credit, unfortunately) has a lengthy piece in today’s paper about rumored Hollywood contestant, Joanna Pacitti.
Joanna, as you may recall, is one of the rumored Season 8 Hollywood contestants with a long history in show business. Performing since she was six years old, Joanna’s most infamous turn happened in 1996 at the age of 12 when she was fired from the Broadway revival of Annie right before she was to open in NYC. Her parents sued the producers for 50 million dollars. The case was eventually settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.
In recent years, she was signed to A&M records, and then appeared on some movie soundtracks, including “Legally Blonde” in 2001 and Bratz: The Movie Soundtrack in 2007. In 2003, she appeared on MTV’s True Life, which followed three kids trying to break into the music business. She tried acting, and then in 2006, Geffen Records, released a single “Let It Slide” that peaked on the Billboard charts at #31. The album that followed, This Crazy Life bombed.
Recently, her song “Circus” was covered by Britney Spears (watch Britney perform it on GMA HERE) Correction: The song is “Out From Under” and is on Britney’s album, Circus, and she’s rumored to be part of a sensational love triangle involving Dancing with the Stars pro Mark Ballas and his girlfriend…
Joanna is, what’s known around the Idol Internets as, a plant. Like Carly Smithson and Michael Johns, who both had failed major record label deals in their past, Joanna’s experience both irks and makes suspicious wary Idol fans. Could the producers have known about her before she auditioned? Why isn’t Idol reserved for the truly unknown?
And like Carly and Michael before her, if Joanna advances to the live competition, her past will follow her, no matter how hard TPTB try to brush it off.
Update: One more correction–The New York Post made a big error. Joanna’s single did not chart on Billboard. Rather, it was her album that charted. This Crazy Life peaked at #31 on on the Billboard Top Heatseekers chart. Heatseekers charts albums from new artists who have not debuted on the Billboard 200. Somebody over at VFTW pointed this out. I looked it up myself to verify.
After the jump, the piece 20/20 did on the Annie controversy, back in 1996.
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47 Responses to “Spoiler: Rumored Hollywood Contestant Joanna Pacitti Totally Outed by the New York Post”
I agree with what most of the people here have said… one thing is a second chance, but there have to be a line where you can no longer compete, in this case this girl have had a lot of exposure that copuld work for or against her…
THE JOANNA PACITTI SONG COVERED BY BRITNEY SPEARS is **NOT** “CIRCUS.”
It is on Spear’s new album, “Circus”, but the cover is of the song “OUT FROM UNDER.”
There are a lot of YouTube videos of both versions of “Out from Under”, and some even splicing together Pacitti and Spears singing so you can compare the two. Most comments over there seem to agree that Pacitti is the better singer.
I think I remember this episode. But I don’t recall Joanna. I just remember the Indian guy who was trying to get a record deal but his parents wanted him to focus on school.
Sounds like Joanna has had alot more experience and exposure than Carly and Michael since we never heard of either of them before they were on Idol. Whether they were “plants” or not doesn’t matter to me-they are both talented and deserve another chance in my opinion. Plus Carly’s prior record deal was when she was a teenager, so I don’t see how Joanna can be compared to her.
This “new news” reads like “old news”. I think I’m becoming really cynical about this show. Yawn.
I am also extremely concerned about a kid who became a superstar so young, because I think it is very unhealthy. I smell a Brittany Spears or Lindsay Lohan coming on in the future- extreme personal problems. I know in Lindsay’s case, she came from a very troubled homelife. Not sure about Brittany or this Joanne.
IMO they should give people with a previous major record deals a own show, where one of them get a new record deal.
I donà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t like them on Idol, because they take the chance away from new talents.
Thanks for the correction…
BTW George Cloony was on “The Facts of Life” and saw him recently on a repeat of “Murder She Wrote” I do not believe the hair…
Yes I also remember the 20/20 show and the process of the audition .I guess it is how American Idol handles it and would not call call her an amature in acting or singing…
The slight problem the girl is used to the big stage and preforming while others may not have that expeariance but sing as well or better.
It doesn’t bother me. Many idols have had albums, etc before they came on idol. Including our most current winner.
I think the distinction here is “major label album”. Any struggling musician can record his own material and sell it online or from the back of his truck (as Cook did). That’s quite different than having execs sink millions into you, making connections within the industry, and actually getting a break, which makes one a “plant”.
Sounds to me like this Joanna has had more than one break. I say give this chance to someone who needs AI to get a foot in the door, not to someone who was already inside the room but wasn’t good enough to stay.
Entertainment Weekly has just given you props, mj!
I’m not going to dash anyone’s dreams and I don’t much care if this girl makes it because either way it’s not going to make her win, but the red flag for me is that I’ve heard of her before Idol. The second I heard her name I knew who she was. At least with Carly and MJ, I could say I’d never heard of them before therefore it didn’t bother me. When I already have this much familiarity with a possible contestent before the season even starts, it seems like a line is starting to be crossed.
Yeah, whatever. The reason I prefer Rockstar to Idol is it has more experienced(older) contestant that could give better performances. Micheal and Carly’s problem was they were not good during semi, where the real competition began, so they seemed quite overrated.
Well, duh. I think I can sing better than Britney, LOL. But Britney is the one who became the star. As Simon would say – when you’ve got it, you’ve got it.
I do not like plants. Tsk.
Yes, me too, in the general way and also the specific. I really liked Charles, thought he was a great opener on the AI2 tour. It’s too bad he didn’t get any push – he could have been the “pre-Chris Brown” Chris Brown, so-to-speak.
I remember the Barbara Walters piece, and I think the vast AI audience is going to also. It may sour them on Joanna or OTOH give her an unfair advantage. It doesn’t seem right, either way.
I guess I always get my hackles up with the word ‘plant’ itself. The implication being that AI solicited this person particularly because of their past ’success’, for lack of a better word. The way I see it is these people are entitled to audition if they meet the criteria. Period.
That being said, the way they fenagled around the Carly story sucked, and she was duplicitous in that. Instead of just saying ‘when I was a wee lass, I had a record deal that went horribly wrong…”, she was defensive and that made her seem fake. Her past did not preclude her from being on the show, and frankly didn’t give her an advantage either.
I think that everyone deserves second chances. I usually don’t even look at the spoiler threads because it colors my perception of the people when I know too much. I like to watch the show with as little prior information as possible so that I don’t watch it with biased eyes.
So I guess, like always I will watch and see. If I like her singing her past will be insignificant to me. If her singing sucks it still will be.
Considering that I live in CT, and not all that far away from NYC, I DEFINITELY remember Joanna, and all of that mayhem…
She will be interesting to observe in the coming months…
I dislike plants as they take away what I consider a basic premise of the show – finding undiscovered talent. Those type of contestants makes the show more exciting and what fun it is to see them develop into terrifc singers and/or entertainers.
I was also predisposed into not liking them. There has to be a lot of singers out there that would love the exposure AI gives. The plants can stay home as far as I am concerned. My all-time favorite “American Dream” is Anthony Fedorov.
The New York Post article makes it sound like she was signed to A&M, dropped, and signed to Geffen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interscope-Geffen-A&M