Before he became Reacher, the hulking behemoth on the hit Amazon series of the same name, Alan Ritchson was a young model with aspirations of pursuing a different career: Professional singer.
In 2003, the Florida native made the trek to Atlanta where American Idol was holding auditions for Season 3. While Ritchson wasn’t a solid wall of muscles like he is now, the then-2o-year-old was still pretty jacked and tall to boot, which had Paula Abdul immediately hot and bothered right out of the gate. She didn’t even try to hide it and the producers obliged by literally kicking Simon Cowell and Randy Jackson out of the room so Ritchson could personally serenade Abdul, which he did.
After Paula had to be physically separated from the future Reacher star, he made it to the live taping of the episode in Los Angeles. However, Ritchson got way too cocky during the second round. Even Paula was weirded out, and just like that, his American Idol days were over.
You can watch Alan Ritchson’s American Idol audition over here at this link, which autoplays when you try to embed it in an article like this, which is stupid.
Despite washing out on American Idol, Ritchson credits the audition with bringing him to L.A. and kickstarting his acting career.
“Even though I was cut, I was enamored of the passion people had there for their art. I decided to stay, and landed TV commercials and auditions,” Ritchson told the Wall Street Journal. “My first break was in 2005, when I was cast in ‘The Butcher,’ a cheap horror film. Then came ‘Smallville,’ which ran until 2010. The series opened the door for me.”
Ritchson played a young Aquaman on The CW series and almost landed his own series, which never made it past the pilot. Now, he’s on the shortlist to be the new Batman in James Gunn’s DC Universe all thanks to an extremely thirsty encounter with Paula Abdul.
(Via Wall Street Journal)