American Idol named Just Sam as the winner of Season 18

“American Idol” named their first-ever remote winner on Sunday night. At long last, the results came in with Ryan Seacrest naming Just Sam as the winner of American Idol Season 18.

The singing competition left a mark on the world as they went remote earlier this season when COVID-19 precautionary measures went in to place.

Performing from their homes, Arthur Gunn, Dillon James, Francisco Martin, Jonny West, and Just Sam gave it their everything to win the top prize.

Every challenger had one final chance as real-time votes determined the winner.

The exciting show incorporated a performance from Katy Perry, Luke Bryan, and Lionel Richie singing “We Are The World” for the first time on TV in 35 years. They were joined by past “Idol winners” as well as this current season’s Top 11 to devote the classic to families at home around the world.

Bryan and Perry additionally played out their songs.

Host Ryan Seacrest marooned at home by the coronavirus pandemic simply like all of us, declared an “Idol” winner to the reality singing competition in marginally more quieted style than ordinary, however, there were as yet belted songs, inspirational backstories and a winner so happy you nearly didn’t see she was celebrating alone in a bedroom, holding an iPad with a relative on video chat. Nearly.

Seacrest named Just Sam, a 20-year-old from Harlem who set out to make her grandma proud, the winner of the third ABC season of “Idol” after she sang her heart out from home. Sam was so overpowered by the news she almost dropped the tablet with her grandma video-chatting in for the big moment.

The episode began by winnowing the top seven to the five contenders who really got the opportunity to compete for the crown in the two-hour finale: Arthur Gunn, Dillion James, Francisco Martin, Jonny West, and Just Sam. This implied Julia Gargano and Louis Knight were done in the competition.

The five finalists had two performances in the episode, one pre-recorded “celebration song” and one sung live. The live song was one that every performer sang at some other point in the competition, and winner Just Sam gets the opportunity to release hers as a single.

There was nothing but praise from the judges – Lionel Richie, Luke Bryan, and Katy Perry – for each of the 10 performances Sunday night, and everybody appeared to be on such similarly inoffensive and charming footing that there was no real front runner as the voting shut. The staying 40 or so minutes of the episode were loaded up with remotely recorded performances from Bryan, Rascal Flatts, Perry, and Cynthia Erivo, before the top two, Just Sam and Arthur Gunn, were finally uncovered. (Gunn’s family even had a confetti cannon at his home for the event.)

After one more commercial break, Seacrest named Just Sam the winner. “Can I thank America now?” she practically screamed at the news. In any case, there wasn’t a lot of time for chit chat (or the ability to do as such over video chat), so all things considered the episode finished with a cheesy version of Richie’s popular “We Are the World” highlighting the season’s contestants and the judges, appeared over pictures of an empty, socially distant America.

It was never going to be an ordinary “Idol” finale in any case.