However, the American public didn't quite see it like that, which is why David Hernandez has been voted out of American Idol already.

Clearly the whole stripper scandal had an effect on David Hernandez's popularity, but his belief in the power of destiny means that he's not letting this disappointing result get him down. "Things happen for a reason," David said. Which is true – it just so happens that the reason in this case is that David Fernandez used to do grubby naked erotic dances for sleazy businessmen. Hey, this destiny thing is a breeze!

American Idol works on a very simple principle – you get a bunch of people together and slowly weed out the interesting ones with feathery hat-wings until you're left with a technically-competent personality-free moppet with enough dumb ambition to yield to each of Simon Cowell's capricious whims and release two big-selling singles and a middling album before they're slung back on the scrapheap. Unless you're Taylor Hicks, in which case you can skip the bit about being successful.

David Hernandez looked like exactly this sort of potential American Idol winner. He was blandly handsome, proficient at singing and stood out because of his weird compulsion to make a noise like an angry Ewok in the middle of all his songs. But David Hernandez didn't think that would be enough to stand out with, so he went and gave himself a long career as a male stripper in a seedy Phoenix club beforehand, too.

And you have to admit that the tactic worked – thanks to his past spent rhythmically flapping his genitals at strangers for money, David Hernandez was the only American Idol contestant that anyone could talk about, even more so than that creepy little wet-mouthed boy singer. American Idol didn't even sack David Hernandez for his previous indiscretions – and Hernandez silently vowed to make the most of this second chance.

Yeah, didn't last. David Hernandez has been voted out of American Idol already. E! Online reports:

In the end, 29 million Americans couldn't come together in support of David Hernandez. After a foray into the Lennon-McCartney songbook resulted in a changing of the guard as far as American Idol's talent-based frontrunners are concerned, it was the 24-year-old Arizona State student (and, one more time, former stripper) who was forced to take an early bow. "Things happen for a reason," Hernandez mused after learning he had been eliminated Wednesday. But "you'll see me at the top. This isn't it for me."

Yeah, at the top of a strippers pole with his balls all greased up, wriggling around to Gypsies, Tramps And Thieves. Heh.

Anyway, David Hernandez is probably right. An early elimination from American Idol quite often leads to bigger and better things. So long as you call getting arrested, falling pregnant and starring in a sex tape bigger and better. 

But even if, by some strange quirk of fate, David Hernandez's destiny doesn't fulfil itself and we never hear from him again, we're certain that he'll manage to make a decent enough living doing something else.

Can't think what, though…

Read more:

David Hernandez Stripped from Idol - E! Online 

But that's where you're wrong, because… oh, actually, no. There really isn't a lot of difference between going on American Idol and the naked penis thing.

In fact, they're so similar that American Idol's head honcho has decided to allow David Hernandez – the American Idol contestant with a murky male stripper past – to stay on the show even though it's patently, patently wrong to do so. Surely American Idol contestants should start the slow depraved slide into humiliating public nudity after they've left the show, not before. Cosmic order like this should not be trifled with.

One of the problems with shows like American Idol – especially in the early stages – is that it's hard to tell the singers apart, which is why the singers who do the best on American Idol always have a gimmick to help them stand out. Taylor Hicks had his scary facial tics, Ruben Studdard had his super super obesity and now David Hernandez has his grubby past as a naked male stripper.

In recent weeks American Idol's David Hernandez had come to be best-known for being the boy with a voice pure enough to pierce Paula Abdul's heart. But a few years before that he was probably best known for being the nude boy with the waggly willy. Because yesterday it was announced that American Idol's David Hernandez used to be a male stripper who specialised in giving lapdances to men.

Nobody knew how this would affect David Hernandez's place on American Idol – in 2003 a contestant turned up on an adult website and was promptly dismissed – but now an American Idol bigwig has said that Hernandez's position is safe. The Boston Herald reports:

“American Idol” producer Ken Warwick came out yesterday to assure contestant David Hernandez that his not-so-secret past as a male stripper doesn’t mean a thang. “The truth is we’re never judgmental about what people do to earn a living,” he told TVGuide.com yesterday. “They’ve gotta put food in people’s mouths.” However, Warwick added, had Hernandez’s exotic past involved “some sort of heavy porn, then maybe we’d have to take action.”

What? David Hernandez had to put food in people's mouths? That's disgusting, we just thought he did the odd naked lapdance every now and then.

Still, we're not entirely convinced that American Idol has made the right decision regarding David Hernandez here. Not just because it seems as though this is all helping to set up the second American Idol sex tape of the year, but because it also sends the wrong message out to the kids.

What American Idol is effectively saying is that you ambitious youngsters will get a good grounding in the machinations of the showbusiness industry if you degrade yourself night after night in front of a small group of creepy rich men who'll slide a small amount of money under your thong if you thrust your genitals in their cackling faces. When in fact… no, actually, that is a pretty decent showbiz grounding after all. Carry on.

Read more:

‘Idol’ backs finalist’s strip club past - Boston Herald 

Or it might not be, and it's all thanks to David Hernandez – an American Idol finalist who might very well have been a male stripper for three years.

A Phoenix strip club manager is telling everyone that David Hernandez used to get his nutsack out all the time for three years while working for him. It's a claim that could potentially damage American Idol's reputation, because the last time a male stripper got onto a Simon Cowell show it was Chico from X Factor. And if David Hernandez turns out to be anything like him, well God help us all.

American Idol is ostensibly a talent show to find America's best undiscovered singer, but somethings we think it's basically just a magnet for the constantly-aroused. Look at American Idol's history – there's been a sex scandal between a judge and a contestant, another contestant who made her own sex tape and the constant, if distant, threat that Randy Jackson is going to grab a passer-by and furiously dry-hump them yelping the word 'dog' again and again like some sort of horrible mating call.

And now the sexy curse of American Idol has struck again. David Hernandez, who eagle-eyed American Idol viewers might recognise as one of the effortlessly interchangeable identikit male American Idol singing clones who you'll never be able to ever tell apart, might have a dark past. And it's dark because his bumhole is in it.

Basically, someone's saying that David Hernandez is a stripper. The New York Daily News reports:

According to a report by the Associated Press, David Hernandez appeared fully nude and performed lap dances for the club's "mostly male" clientele, club manager Gordy Bryan told the news wire service. “He had the look and the type that people like, so he made pretty good money here,” Bryan said. Bryan claims Hernandez — who hails from Glendale, Arizona — worked at the strip club, Dick's Cabaret, for three years until the end of September 2007.

Mostly male clientele? You mean… gay people might have seen David Hernandez's penis? That's despicable – David Hernandez should be eliminated from American Idol this instant. If a schoolgirl can get removed from X Factor for violently attacking another girl, then Hernandez should be removed from American Idol for showing his bell-end to homosexuals. If he stays, there's no telling how much he'll do to the Ryan Seacrest and Simon Cowell-starring talent show that constantly features nothing but Whitney Houston powerballads. Gayness must not be allowed to permeate its borders!

We should have seen this coming, though. Who can forget David Hernandez's first American Idol audition where, dressed as a PVC sailor, he belted out a spine-tingling rendition of The Way We Were that was only interrupted when he hit a high note in the chorus and all the velcro holding his trousers together fell to pieces.

Oh, alright, we'll just admit it. We're annoyed that Renaldo Lapuz didn't make the finals.

Read more:

Was 'American Idol' singer a male stripper? - NY Daily News