Former ‘American Idol’ Winner Taylor Hicks Claims Eliminations on Series Were No Secret

Taylor Hicks, the winner of American Idol‘s fifth season, has publicly claimed he knew the results of the show’s elimination rounds before the dramatic onscreen reveals.

Hicks won American Idol close to the height of the show’s sensational popularity. Every week, he and his co-stars would stand side-by-side grimacing as host Ryan Seacrest teased out the results of the nation-wide vote, which was taken through texts and phone calls from viewers.

However, on Friday Hicks said that he typically knew what those results were before he got onto the stage. He gave an interview at WJOX radio in Birmingham, Alabama, where he surprisingly revealed that the looks of terror on his face in so many episodes were contrived.

“I just, I had an ‘in’ in the whole production of the show,” Hicks said simply. “I’m not going to say who.”

“I had a clear picture of every elimination,” he added.

As for the finale, Hicks did not say he knew the results for sure, but he said, “I had a good idea.”

One of the hosts asked Hicks to clarify if he was the only one with such an advantage. At first, he didn’t seem to want to confirm or deny that any of his former co-stars had a similar arrangement, but after he was asked a couple of times he gave in.

“Were they telling any of the other contestants?” he was asked.

“Absolutely,” he answered.

Hicks chalked some of his insight up to intuition as well, saying that it is easy to track the “momentum” of the show from the inside. He also admitted that his insider did not give him a definitive answer about the results of the finale beforehand.

“That particular night, I did not know who was going to win,” he said. “I had a pretty good feeling.”

Hicks even exposed one of his sources on the production said, saying that executive producer Nigel Lythgoe had given him a hint on the night of the finale.

“Nigel Lythgoe and I had a chat before the actual finale results,” he revealed. “He kind of gave me a wink and a nod, which was great.”

The radio clip was published by TMZ, where it gained national attention. Lythgoe responded to the outlet, saying that he firmly denied all of Hicks’ claims.

American Idol is currently trying to regain its former dominance of the contest reality show genre, on its new home on ABC. It has a whole new line-up of judges, and Lythgoe no longer works on the show.