‘American Idol’ to Bring Back a Fan Favorite Former Contestant for Upcoming Season

American Idol is giving another shot at becoming a singing superstar to one of three fan-favorite contestants from past seasons. Ahead of Idol’s Season 18 premiere on Sunday, Feb. 16, 2020, ABC revealed that fans will be able to vote in Logan Johnson from Season 17, Layla Spring from Season 16, or Shawn Robinson from Season 17 for another chance at the title.

Each artist will tape an audition at Whisky a Go Go in West Hollywood that will be aired during Sunday’s American Music Awards, airing at 8 p.m. ET on ABC. Viewers will then be able to vote for their favorite audition at the American Idol website, with the winner being revealed on Monday’s Dancing With the Stars season finale.

Also returning to American Idol for the third season of the revival and 18th season overall will be judges Katy Perry, Lionel Richie and Luke Bryan as well as host Ryan Seacrest and in-house mentor Bobby Bones.

Bryan told PopCulture.com last month that he and his fellow judges are “settled in” to their roles this season, and have been having a blast during the past few months of auditions.

“I love it. I’m settled in,” Bryan shared with PopCulture.com and other media. “Me and Lionel and Katy and Bobby and Ryan, we’re in our stride. What I love about American Idol is me and Lionel and Katy, we could tell jokes all day long and have antics and be goofy and all that, but when a great, when an amazingly talented kid walks in that room, that’s when the show starts happening.

“We’re in the audition process, and the talent keeps rolling through the door,” he added.

Bones exclusively added to PopCulture.com in September that he was overjoyed at getting to be more involved than ever with the auditions.

“It’s my third season being on the show, since it’s at ABC,” Bones said. “The first season, I just went in and was only going to do one episode. They said ‘Hey, come in as a mentor one episode,’ and that rolled over to two it ended up being four that season. So they brought me back full-time last season, but I missed the very beginning of that show, because I was still dancing on Dancing With the Stars. This is the first season that I’ll be all the way in from the beginning from the audition process. We actually go to Savannah, Georgia next week and start.”

“Me, Luke, Lionel, Katie, and Ryan will all be at all these stops,” Bones added. “And what’s cool about that is, American Idol‘s the only show that goes out into the cities. A lot of the other shows, you have to go and audition and hopefully you get put through, but Idol, we pack up our stuff and we go and make sure that people can get there and I think that’s why you get a lot of people with great stories.

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