Out in Hollywood

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Ramiele Malubay said that when it was just her and fellow contestantr Kristy Lee Cook left opn stage, she knew that she would be the one leaving "American Idol" this week.

"I felt like I was going home," she told me Thursday in a soft voice. "My goal was to get as far as I could."
Ramiele had never before even been in the bottom three but her version of Dolly Parton's "Do I Ever Cross Your Mind" just didn't impress enough viewers or the most inflential judge, Simon Cowell. He decribed the performance as "forgettable" and "reminiscent of something you would see and hear on a cruise ship."
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,ramy2.jpg Even before host Ryan Seacrest made the announcement, Ramiele, a 20-year-old from Florida, isn't holding a grudge: "Simon likes me, i know he does," she said. "He's a really nice guy. He was telling me, 'It was the song choice, it's the song choice....Sometimes he overdoes it (with criticism) but, it's TV. He just wants us to be, like. better."

I wondered if, realistically, she thought she could win the competition.

"My goal was to just get by week-by-week," she said. "I didn't want to think that I was going to get to first place or second place, because if you think of it that way, your experience is totally erased. I didn't want that to happen. ... I made it onto the tour, so I am really excited about that."

After starting out strong, in recent weeks Ramiele began to lose confidence. She said she began to "overthink" the judges comments instead of just going out and singing: "My confidence dropped. I was like, 'What are they talking about?' That's when the overthinking came in. I shouldn't have done that."

The singer said she felt a little bit of extra pressure being an Asian-American and trying to carry the torch for her heritage: "I got as far as I could and I hope nobody's disappointed in me."

Ramiele plans to stay in Los Angeles to pursue her music career. She will be a part of the "American Idol" summer tour which will feature the show's top 10 finalists then will likely be roomates with fellow constestant and close friend Danny Noriega.

Despite the elmination, the experience has been life-changing: "It's pretty much taken over my whole life but it's a good thing. It's actually the first big thing that's happened to me in my life. It's a future and I'm really grateful to the judges."

There were many tears on Wednesday's show after she was voted off and the clips shown before she sang her final number showed how close she had become to her fellow finalists.

"We never thought of it as a competition until it was Wednesday and someone had to go home," she said. "It's a family, it's genuine and comes from the heart. We don't sugar-coat things for the camera."

But don't ask Ramiele to predict a winner.

"We all went into this being titally different from each other and then growing so much more," she said. "I really don't know who's going to take it ... They all sing so fricken different."