Tonight marks the beginning of American Idol 2012 Hollywood Week and it looks like we can expect the usual drama that the week brings and a whole lot more.
American Idol Executive Producer Nigel Lytgoe said contestants this season are surely talented, but he has to question their intelligence.
“The surprise is that people still don’t realize what they’re going to be put through, because we haven’t changed it,” he says. “It’s still that sleep deprivation, that night that they’re going to work. The best ones were going to bed by 11:30, 12 o’clock. And the ones that sucked when they started and sucked when they finished were going to bed at 3:45, 4 o’clock in the morning.”
He’s referencing the fact that contestants were literally “dropping like flies” from fatigue, illness and who knows what else. One of the contestants actually falls of the stage.
“You literally see her wobble and her eyes drop into the back of her head,” Lythgoe said. “She falls, and the cameraman, bless him, tries to dive to catch her, ’cause he’s on the floor on his knees. He doesn’t get there, and knocks his camera, that falls on top of him.”
The Hollywood Week promo (posted after the jump) dares to call it the “most intense ever.”
Be sure to join us on Facebook and Twitter to get the latest American Idol news.