They memorably squared off in the finals of Season 2 of “American Idol” (2003) just as the reality singing competition was embarking on a meteoric rise to become the No. 1 television show in America.
Next week, Ruben Studdard and Clay Aiken bring their special 20th anniversary tour to Bethesda Theater in Bethesda, Maryland, on Monday, Jan. 22 -— a double bill that also celebrates two decades of friendship.
“We have more than kept in touch, we are like family, so we talk regularly,” Studdard told WTOP. “It surprises a lot of people to know that we have remained friends and brothers over the past 20 years.”
“We also toured together in 2010 and did a Broadway show together in 2018,” Aiken said. “I’ve gotten on stage more with Ruben in the last 10 years than I have period. We are a packaged deal in this show. It says ‘Ruben and Clay’ on the back wall, it says ‘Ruben and Clay’ on the ticket, and it’s Ruben and Clay on stage the entire time.”
Don’t expect to hear hits from their solo careers — from Studdard’s “Sorry, 2004” to Aiken’s “Invisible” — this is specifically a 20th anniversary salute to the songs that were sung during the second season of “Idol.”
“What we celebrate are the people and the voices that gave us a chance to perform on the show,” Studdard said. “We talk about the judges and the guest judges and we sing songs that are part of that experience.”
“We couldn’t do a show about ‘American Idol’ without Ruben doing ‘Flying Without Wings’ or ‘Superstar,’ and I’ll do ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water,’ but when we were on the show we sang medleys together, we did duets, so that’s what we’re trying to recreate is 2003. The set list really celebrates the year and the people we worked with.”
What were they doing before they auditioned for “American Idol?”
“Before ‘American Idol,’ I was working at a place called Alabama Clinical School, which is a school for juvenile delinquents,” Studdard said.
“I was not doing too much completely dissimilar,” Aiken said. “I was working as a special educator for kids with autism and some one-on-one respite work for teenagers with autism.”
They both remember watching the powerhouse vocalist Kelly Clarkson win Season 1.
“I’ll admit, I watched Kelly’s finale and I watched maybe one episode prior to that finale,” Studdard said.
“I think I saw the episode that Tamyra Gray got cut from and I was like, ‘Oh, this show is full of crap!'” Aiken said. “Then I did watch the finale also, I think I was flipping through channels, so I saw the end, but 9 million people watched that [first] season and I think it certainly gave the show enough of a rating to get people to renew it for a second season. We did not realize watching that season that it would be 40 million when we were on it.”
Indeed, the pop-culture phenomenon of Season 2 saw judges Simon Cowell and Randy Jackson explode into household names, joining the already famous pop star Paula Abdul to form an iconic television trio.
“Paula was a megastar before she was on the show, but Randy and Simon in particular became the juggernauts that they are today while judging our season,” Studdard said. “We saw the excitement when they would walk into the room, how it shifted as the season went on, you know? It was definitely something great to experience.”
“What blows my mind is that we are today older than Simon was when he was judging us,” Aiken said. “Simon is a huge part of the reason why that show became the huge hit that it was and remains. … At the very beginning, they were certainly tuning in to see what that mean British judge was going to say to people. It was such a different thing that American audiences had never seen before, so he earned his place in the pantheon of TV stars.”
Meanwhile, Ryan Seacrest went from co-hosting in Season 1 to solo hosting in Season 2 before creating his own trademarks: “This … is American Idol” and “Seacrest, out.” Today, he remains the hardest working man in show business, taking over the respective jobs of the late Dick Clark, the late Regis Philbin and the late Casey Kasem.
“Ryan’s always been close to our age,” Aiken said. “Ryan was only a few years older than us, I think he was 28 when we were 24, so he’s not much older than we are. … There was something about Ryan even back then. … He just has a talent that is obvious the minute that you’re around him. It’s so obvious that he was born to do what he does.”
What were their personal favorite performances that season?
“I think my favorite performance was probably ‘A Whole New World,'” Studdard said. “I do it in the show that we do now, well I sing it in the early show meet-and-greets, but it was definitely one of my favorite performances. It was just a great performance and, you know, Gladys Knight kind of named me the ‘Velvet Teddy Bear’ that day.”
“I liked ‘Bridge [Over Troubled Water],'” Aiken said. “Most every week we got to pick our own songs. Ironically, it wasn’t until the last two weeks that we no longer got to choose our own songs and that got a little more stressful because Ruben and I had always chosen songs we already knew, that was part of our philosophy going into each week. … I got sort of lucky because ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ was a song I had sung in my high school choir.”
In the finale, it was Ruben’s coronation song “Flying Without Wings” vs. Clay’s swan song “This Is the Night.”
“I loved mine,” Studdard said. “Part and parcel because getting the opportunity to work with Babyface was just … I couldn’t believe I was actually in the studio with him. Honestly, that’s when I knew that the process was really real, like ‘what is happening right now?’ It just really changed my perspective of where this thing was headed for me after doing that song, so I always have a fond memory of singing and recording ‘Flying Without Wings.'”
“I like Ruben’s better,” Aiken said. “I love ‘This is the Night,’ I pick on it a lot, it is very high and it was certainly a song that was made in a factory, it was a factory-built song. ‘Flying Without Wings’ just defines the year. Ruben sings it every night and I get through it every night perfectly fine now, but for the longest time, whenever he would sing it, I’d get teary because it is the theme song to that season for me.”
What was it like the moment they announced the winner?
“It is surreal,” Studdard said. “Honestly, that moment was a moment of completion I think for the both of us. We endured a lot of things that nobody really gets an opportunity to see. Our work schedule was that of crazy people; 16 or 17-hour days every day for six months. … I was thrilled to hear my name called, but I was even more thrilled to know that I had completed a task that I had set out to complete with one of my best friends in the world.”
“A lot of people expect there to be some sort of [bad blood],” Aiken said. “We would talk to other winners or runners up who had not talked to their winner or runner-up in several years. It was just shocking to both of us. How could you go through that experience and not be tight with that person and be very good friends with them?”
Aiken says their naivety was actually beneficial to their enduring friendship.
“We didn’t know what the stakes were,” Aiken said. “When Fantasia and Diana DeGarmo auditioned for ‘Idol’ Season 3, they had seen Kelly have a platinum album, they had seen my album and Ruben’s album both come out and be successful, so they knew the day they showed up to audition what ‘Idol’ could do. We had no idea.”
Indeed, Clarkson and Studdard paved the way for future winners like Fantasia Barrino to star in “The Color Purple” and Carrie Underwood to become one of the biggest country music superstars of our time. Earlier this week, Jordin Sparks visited the Kennedy Center to salute Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on MLK Day.
“The last time all of the winners were together was about nine years ago when ABC took over ‘American Idol’ [from Fox] and we did a thing at Disney,” Studdard said. “Honestly, that was the first time that I had been in the room with everybody that had won the show ever.”
Aiken is also in good company as some of the show’s biggest stars didn’t actually win, including Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson, rock star Chris Daughtry and Queen frontman Adam Lambert.
“Jennifer Hudson and Chris Daughtry came in sixth and fifth!” Aiken said. “Ruben and I got what we got because of the show … but both of us have had to work very hard to maintain it. … Jennifer Hudson and Chris Daughtry had to work and they did. Kellie Pickler went to work and had a talk show for a while. You really have to put in the work. ‘Idol’ certainly gave people a platform, but you could make of it only what you were willing to put in the work for.”
Listen to the full podcast below:
Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here.
© 2024 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.
