# Teen Girl Deemed "Too Heavy" for American Idol's Front Row



## mountaindew (Apr 12, 2011)

http://theclicker.today.com/_news/2...-she-was-deemed-too-heavy-for-idols-front-row

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1375780/American-Idol-2011-Fan-told-sit-row-size.html

What total bull.


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## CastingPearls (Apr 12, 2011)

I want to speak up and make sure it's known how they treated me.

'If that's how they treat me - a nobody - how are they treating their staff or their contestants?'

Miss Kauffman said her weight gain had been the result of medical issues when she was younger.

Doctors had thought she had endometriosis and had given her appropriate medication. But after surgery had found their diagnosis was wrong.

Miss Kauffman said she stopped taking the medication but blames it for her weight gain.

'It makes me mad that they would jump to the conclusion that I'm heavy because I eat a lot,' she said about Idol staff.

'My story is not that I overeat. You can't judge people if you don't know their history.'

Miss Kauffman said even though the comments hurt her she is tough enough to take it, but worries about other girls.

'Who knows how many people they've said that too?' she said. 'If they did it to the wrong girl, who knows what could have happened?'

**********

Poor thing. However, it seems that the only 'other girls' she's worried about are those who got 'not that big' via medication as opposed to just being bigger human beings without having to justify their existence to anyone.



*Non sequitur here but I suggest we vote on evisceration and decapitation (in that order) for the next person who uses a Daily Mail article as an OP.*


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## Surlysomething (Apr 12, 2011)

Whoa, she looks average to me.


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## bmann0413 (Apr 13, 2011)

Dude, WTF? That's some messed up stuff. She doesn't even look all that big to me.


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## Cors (Apr 13, 2011)

What CastingPearls said. 

Yes, she is probably of average size in the US and probably considered tiny here on Dimensions but the fact is that she has been treated appallingly because of her size. I would be interested to see how AI's PR team responds.


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## mossystate (Apr 13, 2011)

bmann0413 said:


> She doesn't even look all that big to me.



So put another 50 pounds on her and you would be able to understand? It doesn't matter the actual weight.

==

It's fucked up, and let's face it, lots of people are denied front row seats because of how they look. Sounds like AI needs to train their people to not be so honest. Her friends are wonderful...there's that.


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## bmann0413 (Apr 13, 2011)

mossystate said:


> So put another 50 pounds on her and you would be able to understand? It doesn't matter the actual weight.
> 
> ==
> 
> It's fucked up, and let's face it, lots of people are denied front row seats because of how they look. Sounds like AI needs to train their people to not be so honest. Her friends are wonderful...there's that.



I didn't mean it like that. I'm just saying that it's messed up that the society we live in today would do something so despicable just because of how someone looks.


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## Diane (Apr 13, 2011)

One of the best contestants ever--Mandisa-- was a BBW until she went all Hollywood and lost weight. Maybe the people at Idol don't realize most Americans are "overweight" now.


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## Stroker Ace (Apr 13, 2011)

Man FUCK American Idol, that show is joke anyway. Really, who the fuck wants to go to Hollyweird anyway. Nothin' but phonies. 
Start your own band, write your own songs, paint your own pictures and send all the phonies to hell!


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## Jes (Apr 13, 2011)

Another angle to the story: Kauffman's seats were originally for the 5th row, which is where she did end up sitting and no one in her group of friends corroborates her story, apparently. From an article posted at Yahoo.com:

"Hannah Solarzano, 19, said Tuesday that she was part of Kauffman's group, which traveled from suburban Riverside to Los Angeles for the show but hadn't met her before that night. Solarzano said she was seated next to Kauffman and didn't hear any insults being directed at her.

"Nobody started talking about the comment that was supposedly made to Ashley until she brought it up," Solarzano said. "I never heard those words except from her."

Solarzano recounted that she was singled out by a studio employee and told she couldn't sit in the front row because she was wearing shorts. Others in the group were taken aback, with one saying, "Oh my God, did you hear how she said that to you?" Solarzano said.

It worked out fine, she said. "I was three people away from Steven Tyler, so I wasn't complaining."

But Kauffman did, repeating several times that a male studio employee had told her she was moved back because she was fat and couldn't sit up front with the "skinny girls," Solarzano said.

When Kauffman subsequently complained online about her experience at the show, the audience coordinator that initially booked her group contacted Kauffman to discuss what had happened, Westphal said.

The coordinator told her there was no bias, that people of all "ages, shapes and sizes" sit in the front row all the time, and that Kauffman simply was being seated according to her ticket for the fifth row of the floor section, he said."


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## Surlysomething (Apr 13, 2011)

Jes said:


> Another angle to the story: Kauffman's seats were originally for the 5th row, which is where she did end up sitting and no one in her group of friends corroborates her story, apparently. From an article posted at Yahoo.com:
> 
> "Hannah Solarzano, 19, said Tuesday that she was part of Kauffman's group, which traveled from suburban Riverside to Los Angeles for the show but hadn't met her before that night. Solarzano said she was seated next to Kauffman and didn't hear any insults being directed at her.
> 
> ...


 

Always two sides to a story. Thanks for posting this.


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## Fox (Apr 13, 2011)

I'm just way to pissed off to describe how I feel about this. I never did like American Idol.


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## That Guy You Met Once (Apr 13, 2011)

Stroker Ace said:


> Man FUCK American Idol, that show is joke anyway. Really, who the fuck wants to go to Hollyweird anyway. Nothin' but phonies.
> Start your own band, write your own songs, paint your own pictures and send all the phonies to hell!



I agree.

Really, trying out on Idol is one of the worst ways to pursue a music career in the first place. Ask anyone who's done it.


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## LovelyLiz (Apr 13, 2011)

Stroker Ace said:


> Man FUCK American Idol, that show is joke anyway. Really, who the fuck wants to go to Hollyweird anyway. Nothin' but phonies.
> Start your own band, write your own songs, paint your own pictures and send all the phonies to hell!



Have you ever been to Hollywood, and really looked around (like outside of the main tourist areas)? I know it's convenient to talk about Hollywood as this monolithic place of people who have all sold their creative soul so that they can please THE MAN...but that's just not how it is. Are there people like that here? Sure, plenty. But there's also an amazing creative energy here in Los Angeles, and I have plenty of friends who make music or do performance art who do interesting, fun, beautiful stuff and couldn't care less about conforming to some phony, plastic standard. 

Are they involved with American Idol? No. But let's not allow a tiny piece of the entertainment world to speak for an entire, diverse city. (I love my town. Gotta set the record straight!)


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## Weirdo890 (Apr 13, 2011)

CastingPearls said:


> I want to speak up and make sure it's known how they treated me.
> 
> 'If that's how they treat me - a nobody - how are they treating their staff or their contestants?'
> 
> ...



It does come off like that, doesn't it? However, that is still very unfair treatment for anybody! It's pretty much Idol trying to hide anything they see as "imperfection" from their show. We cannot have people seeing fat people on their TV. They only want thin, "attractive" people on here. Just another reason for me to not watch this show.


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## MasterMike (Apr 14, 2011)

Let me just say I've always HATED American Idol with the burning hatred of a thousand suns; it's homogenized, pre-fab squeaky-clean pop crap that is making our nation dumber, and it's sad and pathetic to see the once-awesome Steven Tyler piss away the last of his hard rock-cred as judge on that show.   But still, this is a glaring case of fat discrimination in our culture that if you're super-skinny you don't deserve to be seen on TV even as an audience member! This Ashley is not even that fat; she's cute and curvaceous with a lovely face and a great smile. I'd be proud to have her as a girlfriend(now if she were just a little heavier...).


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## HayleeRose (Apr 15, 2011)

So from someone who actually watches that show, they do a lot of close ups\ audience views and more often than not they show bigger people in the audience. ( obviously not speaking on this girls specific experiance seeing as theres conflicting stories and I wasnt there.) and even a few of the singer that made it pretty far in the competition were bigger. And not to mention, randy jackson isnt exactly a small man.


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## knottyknicky (Apr 17, 2011)

Maybe its because I grew up in Southern California and the 'rules' of Hollywood just aren't that foreign to me, but this isn't just an American Idol thing, this is EVERY show that has a live audience shown. Even outside of the US, its the norm. A friend of mine in France was recently a guest at a French comedy/variety show and was seated in front...she's gorgeous, as were her seatmates. Walk around any mall in the Burbank area in LA and you'll likely see shows being filmed and 'random' pretty girls and guys being asked if they'd like to be interviewed or cast as an extra. Is it really a secret that Hollywood has a weight bias? She absolutely deserves an apology, but I can't really understand why anyone is surprised about this.


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## knottyknicky (Apr 17, 2011)

MadMike R5D4 said:


> I'd be proud to have her as a girlfriend(now if she were just a little heavier...).




Sorry, but isn't this a bit of the same bias just, in reverse? I won't comment on the creepiness of your comment, but objectification is objectification, regardless of which way your bias leans.


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## danbsc29630 (Apr 17, 2011)

I could care less about American Idol. I just don't see why anyone should feel they need to explain why they are 150 lbs. Even if she was 250 or 350 she owes no one an explanation.


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## CastingPearls (Apr 17, 2011)

danbsc29630 said:


> I could care less about American Idol. I just don't see why anyone should feel they need to explain why they are 150 lbs. Even if she was 250 or 350 she owes no one an explanation.


Posting for emphasis and truth.


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## MasterMike (Apr 17, 2011)

knottyknicky said:


> Sorry, but isn't this a bit of the same bias just, in reverse? I won't comment on the creepiness of your comment, but objectification is objectification, regardless of which way your bias leans.



I was *joking* about the whole "now if she was just a few pounds heavier" comment, anyone who thinks that's "creepy" should really lighten up. I was merely talking about I personally find attractive, not discriminating against or objectifying her as a human being. See, there are some skinny women I actually find attractive, as well as BBWs I find attractive; and there are some BBWs who don't really do anything for me just as well as most skinny women. What I'm really in a potential partner is a good personality, someone I can connect with emotionally. One thing that turns me off to a would-be soulmate is an overly p.c. attitude where her funnybone should be, I'm just sayin...


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## MaryClaire (Apr 17, 2011)

I had a very similar thing happen to me when I went to the Oprah show. Yep, I said Oprah.
I was with 2 friends who are thin. We were actually in one of the upper rows but I was seated right at the top of the stairs, so no one was in front of me. After everyone was seated the producers were doing a once over of the crowd and one of them spotted me. She immediately came up and got my friends and I. She took us to seats that were behind the cameras. 
No one ever said why, and frankly I didn't ask. I knew what the reason was. The seats I got moved to were actually better because they were flush with the stage but it was still pretty humilitating.


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## kioewen (Apr 17, 2011)

knottyknicky said:


> Sorry, but isn't this a bit of the same bias just, in reverse? I won't comment on the creepiness of your comment, but objectification is objectification, regardless of which way your bias leans.



"I won't comment on the creepiness of your comment"

Wow. How is that _not _commenting?

What I find creepy is people who feel entitled to police other people's personal preferences.


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## kioewen (Apr 17, 2011)

CastingPearls said:


> Non sequitur here but I suggest we vote on evisceration and decapitation (in that order) for the next person who uses a Daily Mail article as an OP.



I don't see why. I've encountered a lot of pieces in the Daily Mail that are pro-curvy -- more at least than in other British papers that don't have pay-for-view firewalls, like the Times now does. Needless to say, they run a lot of celebrity weight-shaping stories too; but that's true of almost any paper. A good article is a good article regardless of source.


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## Heyyou (Apr 20, 2011)

Im glad i found this thread. I think "too heavy" is MUCH preferrable to stick-figure thin.

Why do people hate on heavy? I need to do a thesis on haters


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## Bigbud1 (Apr 21, 2011)

The media really has brainwashed the masses on how "fat" is too "fat". It is perfectly normal to have body fat and everyone has varying amounts of it for whatever reason....that is their business and sometimes nothing but genetics at work. Then there is "it's not healthy rants" The people who make that statement appear to me as having some kind of mental disorder and are more likely to be a drain on the health care system and benefits system than any "fat" person. My simple rants.


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## joswitch (Apr 21, 2011)

kioewen said:


> I don't see why. I've encountered a lot of pieces in the Daily Mail that are pro-curvy -- more at least than in other British papers that don't have pay-for-view firewalls, like the Times now does. Needless to say, they run a lot of celebrity weight-shaping stories too; but that's true of almost any paper. A good article is a good article regardless of source.



The Daily Fail, also known as the Daily Heil does have a long and unpleasant history (supported Mosely's Blackshirts), it's true. For fluff pieces like TV audience seating it's political bias is unlikely to show through. 

The reason you see it quoted so often is that it's put a massive effort into developing its online tabloid side and its free website works smoothly and has constantly updated no-brainer content.


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## Jes (Apr 21, 2011)

Heyyou said:


> Im glad i found this thread. I think "too heavy" is MUCH preferrable to stick-figure thin.
> 
> Why do people hate on heavy? I need to do a thesis on haters



what do you look like?


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