The 10th season of American Idol wrapped last night with a two-hour-and-seven-minute finale during which baby-faced country crooner Scotty McCreery won the big prize and Lady Gaga gave the most literal performance of her career. As expected, the show was weird -- special guests included Judas Priest and Tony Bennett -- but hopefully we can answer all your lingering questions right now:
Did Idol cut away from Scotty maybe kissing Lauren Alaina when the results were read?
Possibly! Business Insider points out that cameras seemed to cut away from the two finalists whenever they got close, and there was definitely a suspicious edit (visible at the :20 mark in the below video). Before McCreery even thanked the Lord, he told Ryan Seacrest, "It's been a year since me and Lauren Alaina tried out now, me and her have been together since day one, and we're going to stay together." Oh, really? Confronted about the dating question after the show, they played it coy. "We're really close friends... Idon't know about the dating part. She's just being funny," said Scotty when Lauren playfully told the press to confront him about their status, according to Zap2it. "She's such a sweetheart. We've grown so close. It's a special relationship we have."
Who was in Steven Tyler's backing band?
Well, it wasn't Aerosmith! New judge Tyler had promised his band would perform on the Idol finale, but guitarist Joe Perry swore it wasn't gonna happen. And the winner of this truth contest is... Joe Perry! When Tyler sat down at a white grand piano to play "Dream On," he was backed by Stone Temple Pilots' Robert and Dean DeLeo, drummer Marti Frederiksen and pianist Russ Irwin. Frederiksen is a longtime Aerosmith collaborator and one of the "Boneyard Boys" who help write and produce the band's music. Irwin is best known for his 1991 single "My Heart Belongs to You," and has been part of Aerosmith's touring band since the late '90s.
Who was that dude singing with Bono and the Edge?
Half of U2 were on the scene at Idol to promote their struggling $70 million Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. The young guy trading verses with Bono was Reeve Carney, the 28-year-old musician who plays Peter Parker/Spider-Man in the show. He fronts a band called Carney whose other members scored a sweet gig playing in the pit orchestra for the production. Last night the trio performed "Rise Above 1," which was produced by Alex Da Kid. The song gets a solid "meh" from us -- we'd have preferred if they'd done the more U2-y "Boy Falls From the Sky."
Where was last year's winner?
It's traditional for the most recent American Idol victor to make an appearance at the finale to A) pass the crown on to the new winner and B) remind America he/she is still alive. This year, though, producers didn't let season nine Idol Lee DeWyze take the stage. "Hey guys, no I'm not performing at the Finale. I wasn't asked to," he tweeted. "A lot of questions so I thought I'd fill you in."
What was the ballad Beyoncé sang?
If the super sexy song Beyoncé performed didn't sound familiar, there's a good reason for that -- it's brand new! "1 + 1" is the opening track on the singer's June 28th LP 4 and a big chance of pace from her frantic first single "Run the World (Girls)," which she performed at the Billboard Music Awards earlier this week.
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See Also:
• Lady Gaga Brings Extremely Literal Performance to 'Idol' Finale
[Photo: Kevin Winter/American Idol 2011/Getty Images]