Kelly and Justin tell us the best ways to prepare for Idol-dom:
Guarini: Do ‘this,’ whatever ‘this’ is. ‘This’ to me equates doing exactly what you love. You have to be 100 percent clear on your goals. You have to know your outcome. And you have to believe in it and work for it every day. You should wake up thinking about it and go to bed thinking about it. Not worrying about it but just thinking about it. And it should be a constant part of your life if you really, truly love it.
Clarkson: It’s so funny, but we didn’t get American Idol like everyone else did. We didn’t experience like y’all did. Now, it’s totally different. I watched a little bit of the second season, but I don’t know how those people could have their families on it. I would never let my mama sit there and be a part of it. I wouldn’t like that. I mean, would you want to bring your mom to your cubicle at work? [The second season] was totally different and that’s probably what they wanted to do. Not make it the same show. In a way, we were so innocent. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.
Little girls come up to me and say they want to be just like me, and I say, ‘No you don’t. You don’t want to me, you want to be yourself.’ I mean, there are people I want to image myself after–Bette Midler, Aretha Franklin, Celine Dion–to pool ideas from. But I’m still me. I always want to make sure little girls know not to be me but to be themselves.
