Pia Toscano on Her Early Exit from ‘American Idol’

Ellen was surprised, she tweeted so. Same with Snooki. An onslaught of tweets, posts and comments by viewers vowed never to watch “American Idol” again.

But Pia Toscano, the singer at the center of what might go down as the largest upset in Idol history, well, she had a feeling.

“Ya know, it was certainly a small bit of surprise, but the night before I had a weird feeling in my stomach,” Toscano said to Speakeasy today.

She told her parents as much. “I didn’t reckon I performed terribly, but I told my parents I had a feeling. My dad was like ‘don’t be silly, be confident.’”

She said she tried to stay positive and that her friend and fellow contestant Stefano Langone was “keeping me up.” But America wasn’t and Toscano said despite what her gut was telling her when she really heard her name, she was devastated.

“I tried to keep it together. It’s everything to me and my family was there…it’s upsetting.”

Toscano isn’t really sure what happened or why she didn’t get the votes. Questioned if 16-year-ancient girls vote for the boys, she said she really doesn’t know. “It’s just the way it goes. That may be the case. The boys are well loved. It’s possible…It’s weird and puzzling. I don’t know what goes on with the voting.”

But it might have been the judges’ influence that sent Toscano packing. The judges, especially Jennifer Lopez, urged Pia week after week to really kick the performance into high gear and own the stage. Even on Wednesday night, amidst some seriously sugar-coated reviews for other contestants, Pia got the very few negative words.

Maybe she waited too long to grow? She didn’t reckon so. She said she wasn’t going to go out there and do something up tempo during Elton John week. She said she has no regrets and in fact, thinks JLo was absolutely right in her assessment. “I certainly agree with her. The more comfortable I felt, the more I did. It’s a growth process.”

The ironic thing about her ballad rep is that before her stint on Idol she was really recording very different music than what she performed on stage there.

“You know. Its amusing. Before I came out I was recording more up tempo stuff. More than the ballad. I wanted to show I had the vocal chops to compete in the competition, which is why I stuck to the ballads. I’m more of a pop with R and B influence.”

And even though it probably cost her the Idol title, she agrees with the judges very early choice to keep Casey because she said he deserved to be there. She concedes they might have used that save on her, but was zen about how it played out. “Everything happened the way it was supposed to happen…it is what it is.”

Pia gets another crack at singing tonight on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.”