‘American Idol’ Finalist Has Felony Past
LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) – It has almost become a routine to watch a new FOX reality show and wait to see what brand of criminal, amoral or controversial past behaviors made it past the network’s background checks. The latest unsavory revelations involve Trenyce, one of the nine remaining finalists on the second season of “American Idol.”
TheSmokingGun.com has obtained a mug shot photo of Trenyce, then still known as Lashundra Cobbins, stemming from an 1999 felony theft arrest. Cobbins was booked in Memphis, Tenn. on Oct. 6, 1999, but a Shelby County criminal court judge put her in a pre-trial diversion program, allowing her to expunge her record. According to TSG, Cobbins was upfront with producers about her past, so she’ll remain on the show.
It’s been a difficult season for “American Idol,” which experienced its first glitch with the news that popular contestant Frenchie Davis once posed for nudie pictures on an adult web site. Frenchie’s activities were, of course, totally legal, but the show wanted no part of a possible scandal (seeing as how while she posed for the pictures when she was a legal adult, the site catered to men looking for underage models) and removed all references to Frenchie from the show’s website and removed the zaftig singer from the round of 32. Frenchie has landed on her feet, working as a correspondent for Entertainment Tonight.”
This season’s second ” American Idol” blackeye came when former semifinalist Jaered Neale Andrews faced charges for assault after a November altercation outside a bar, which left a Pennsylvania man dead. Andrews remains free on $5,000 bail.
The series of entertaining FOX reality scandals began, of course, with accused wife-beater and non-millionaire Rick Rockwell of ” Who Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire.” Taheed Watson and Ytossie Patterson of ” Temptation Island” raised ethical hackles when it was discovered that they went on the couple-splitting show despite a child. Earlier this year, ” Joe Millionaire” faced minor embarrassment over the fetish film past of finalist Sara Kozer, while ” Married by America” had to deal with a possible suitor who was already married.”
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