To kick off the All-Star Duets on American Idol, the producers brought in the legendary Pat Benatar and her guitarist husband Neil Giraldo. Kate Barnette and Madison Vandenburg were the lucky Idol contestants who got to perform with the white-haired duo on stage. On the second night of American Idol‘s All-Star Duets, award-winning singer/actress Cynthia Erivo (also with fashionable white hair!) graces the stage at The Wiltern in Los Angeles.
The 32-year-old is best known for her performance as Celie with Jennifer Hudson (a former Idol star) in the 2015 Broadway revival of The Color Purple (see link above), for which she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical as well as a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album. With Idol contestant Ryan Hammond, Erivo sings the Cyndi Lauper song “Time After Time” which won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year in 1985. (Time After Time, streaming here.)
What’s next for Erivo? In January 2019, it was announced that she was cast for HBO’s series adaptation of Stephen King’s horror novel The Outsider. Erivo will play Holly Gibney, a major character in the book and from Stephen King’s Bill Hodges trilogy. (Holly is Hodges’s partner in investigations).
The 10 of the Top 20 performing on American Idol‘s All-Star Duets on Monday, April 8, beginning at 8 pm, are:
- Alyssa Raghu with celebrity duet partner Julia Michaels
- Eddie Island with celebrity duet partner Lukas Graham
- Logan Johnson with celebrity duet partner Julia Michaels
- Wade Cota with celebrity duet partners lovelytheband
- Ryan Hammond with celebrity duet partner Cynthia Erivo
- Evelyn Cormier with celebrity duet partner Chris Isaak
- Raquel Trinidad with celebrity duet partners lovelytheband
- Alejandro Aranda with celebrity duet partner Ben Harper
- Dimitrius Graham with celebrity duet partner Lukas Graham
- Jeremiah Lloyd Harmon with celebrity duet partner Cynthia Erivo
