Kelly Clarkson and Kris Allen are the only winners to not have their entire audition shown on television - while Kris had a clip of his shown, Kelly's was not shown at all.
Kelly Clarkson holds the record for the most albums sold by an American Idol alumni with nearly 10 million records. Also, her songs have been downloaded nearly 10 million times. Carrie Underwood is second with album and digital download sales of 15.7 million.
Two brothers from Denver named Jimmy and Scott Osterman were among the hopefuls at the "American Idol 2" tryouts in Austin, Texas. Their audition, which included a cringe-making version of Paula Abdul's "Opposites Attract", had judge Simon Cowell about to deliver a scathing putdown when the pair revealed themselves to be Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly in disguise and that Cowell was the victim of a practical joke for their show Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway (2002). McPartlin and Donnelly are also the hosts of Pop Idol (2001) the original British show from which "American Idol" is adapted, and for which Cowell also serves as a judge.
Ruben Studdard beat Clay Aiken by only 134,000 votes out of the 24 million cast in the Season 2 finale. It remains one of the closest votes in the show's history.
At the Las Vegas auditions during Season 4, Joseph Land entered the audition room and claimed that he was 28 years old, the maximum age allowed for the competition. All the judges, however, were skeptical of Land's claim, because he appeared to be much older than 28. The chyron graphics displaying his stats even showed his age as "28" (including the quote marks). After his audition received unanimous negative feedback from the judges, Land finally admitted to being 44 years old.