Sanjaya Malakar is an Entertainer!

After some abysmal performances from Sanjaya Malakar, he shocked us all with his rather nice performance of "Bésame Mucho" on the Latin influence night. Can this kid really sing? Has he been playing with us all along? While many people feel that he should have been voted out weeks ago, he has managed to hang on and remained in the show much longer than many people expected. With popular shock jock Howard Stern as well as the Vote For The Worst website advocating to keep him in the American Idol competition, Sanjaya Malakar is riding the wave of his new found popularity. Apparently, thanks to them and some easily impressionable young fans, this young man is vastly popular and will have a nice start to a career in the entertainment field now that his American Idol stint has come to an end. In recent weeks, Sanjaya has delivered terrible performances that were all cause for his elimination from the contest but for the speed dialing efforts of these factions. It was only with his performance of Bonnie Raitt's "Something to Talk About" that his fan support dropped enough to get him eliminated from the American Idol contest.

With the theme being British Invasion week when the contest was set to determine the contestants who would be going on tour this summer, Sanjaya's performance of "You Really Got Me" was awful. His strained vocals were painful to listen to but his apparent popularity among viewers or his inclusion on the Vote For The Worst website kept him in the competition. He does have some very loyal fans however as evidenced by the little girl in the audience who was so overwhelmed by Sanjaya's performance that she was reduced to tears. We did see later in the show however that tears flowed rather freely from this sweet devoted little fan.

The following week, Sanjaya performed the No Doubt hit, "Bathwater". Again, his performance was laughable as was his appearance with his pony tail Mohawk hairdo. The performance was so bad that it would make one wonder if he was singing so bad and looking rather strange on purpose. His performance almost seemed like a spoof of entertainers. If he was aiming for the comedy performance of the show, he certainly got the attention he was seeking and was allowed to remain in the competition again.

Despite the coaching of the very talented award winning entertainer Tony Bennett, Sanjaya's performance of "Cheek to Cheek" was embarrassing. His attempt at crooning fell horribly short even with his snazzy look and mid-song dance with American Idol judge Paula Abdul. Once again, he was allowed to remain in the contest.

It became crystal clear to American Idol judges Randy Jackson, Paula Abdul, Simon Cowell that their opinions carried no weight in the voting pattern for this very popular contestant. Even host Ryan Seacrest commented that Sanjaya was doing a great job flying under the radar.

Perhaps he has been playing us all along and delivered these lousy performances for a reason. Look at all the publicity he has received! Now that he has been eliminated from the American Idol competition, it will be interesting to see where his career goes from here. Even though Sanjaya Malakar is no longer in the competition, his popularity remains high. Since his elimination, he continues to ride the wave of his newfound status as a teen idol and will probably draw droves of fans when the American Idol group goes on tour this summer.