Matt Farmer, a standout talent from this week's episode of American Idol, has admitted to lying on camera about his military record.
Farmer, the 26-year-old "rock 'n' roll dad," came to the Long Beach auditions with his three-year-old daughter, Cadence. His story went that he had been injured by a roadside bomb while serving in Iraq and sustained a traumatic brain injury, and that the medicine he was prescribed was supposed to render him sterile, making the birth of Cadence a miracle.
One day after the episode's release, the website Guardian of Valor quoted several soldiers who had allegedly served with Farmer and denied his claims.
Though he did serve, it was reported that Farmer had instead been discharged after suffering a seizure from consuming acne medication with alcohol.
In response, Farmer contacted the Guardian of Valor website directly and claimed that his interview with the American Idol producers had been edited out of context. Later, the site uncovered audio of Farmer recounting a similar experience at a church service, after which he released an updated statement confirming that he had indeed lied on the show.
If this sounds familiar, it should. Less than a year ago, the exact same thing happened to America's Got Talent contestant Timothy Michael Poe.
During Season 7, Poe claimed to have been serving in Afghanistan when he was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade that left him with a stutter. It was also later reported online that Poe's military records did not match his story.
Poe also tried to worm his way out of getting caught with further fabrications, first by claiming that the lack of records was a "common problem" in the military, and later by blaming his bad memory of how he got his injury on his injury.
At the same time, Poe was being very publicly reprimanded by Howard Stern, who was judging his first season on AGT that year, on his radio show.
This begs the question: What made Matt Farmer think this was a good idea?
The initial date of the AI-12 Los Angeles audition was June 7th of 2012, literally only one day after word had spread that Poe had been outed for fabricating his record. Did Farmer really think he could get away with doing the exact same thing that Poe had failed to do only one day after his failure?
Maybe he does have a brain injury.
Comments