This season of American Idol finishes quite soon, but it’ll have to do so without the fire-eyed, slightly berserk stage dad Jeff Archuleta.

Father of wimpy-looking namby-pamby American Idol favourite David Archuleta, Jeff Archuleta has reportedly been banned from American Idol’s backstage area by producers after he kept urging his son to sing bits of other songs during a recent performance of Stand By Me.

That’s not all – Jeff Archuleta is also supposedly so pushy and all-controlling that he’s made David Archuleta cry in the past. Really, who do these American Idol producers think they are? In 20 years when David Archuleta is living in a normal house instead of a creepy rundown fairground with a drinking problem and an obsession with the childhood that his father stole from him, it’ll be them who’ll be to blame. Them!

Despite having the fewest viewers ever, a blandly interchangeable array of contestants and so many new segments that it feels bloated beyond compare, this season of American Idol hasn’t been completely terrible. It’s had a crazy man in a feathery hat, a balls-out male stripper and Paula Abdul being characteristically mental. What more could you ask for?

An overbearing stage parent who’s reportedly happy to withhold his son’s water supply to make him work harder? Well guess what – American Idol had that too in Jeff Archuleta.

Pushy stage parents are something of a necessity in showbusiness. Where would Michael Jackson be now if his father hadn’t hit him with sticks to make him work harder? And where would Jessica Simpson be if her father didn’t dribble over her tits with such creepy regularity? Would Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan be where they are if their parents hadn’t so monomaniacally focused on making them famous at the expense of a sensible upbringing? No they wouldn’t. They’d be normal. Normal. Ugh.

So really Jeff Archuleta is just a continuation of that proud tradition. According to rumours, he’d pick David Archuleta’s American Idol songs, meddle constantly with the band’s arrangements and work David so hard that it becomes clear why he’s ended up as such a mimbling nervy little approval-seeking git.

And American Idol was fine with that, right up until Jeff Archuleta started telling his son to sing bits of Sean Kingston’s Beautiful Girls in the middle of his performance of Stand By Me. As soon as producers caught wind of that, Jeff Archuleta got banned from backstage quicker than Paula Abdul smashing her face up on a dog. Reuters reports:

It cost the show’s producers more money because they must pay for music rights when contestants sing songs. In effect, the producers had to pay for two songs, “Stand by Me” and “Beautiful Girls,” when David sang only one… Last month in Us Weekly magazine, Jeff Archuleta said accusations he was an overbearing “stage dad” were simply wrong. “There was absolutely no truth in any of the stories about me yelling at David, making him cry, or withholding water from him. That was crazy!,” Jeff Archuleta told the magazine.

Now it just remains to be seen whether David Archuleta can cope without his Dad enough to win American Idol like Taylor Hicks or whether he’ll lose it like that loser who won an Oscar for that film last year. Whatever the result, though, we hope that Jeff Archuleta remains a constant presence by David’s side for the rest of his life.

Because it seems like such a waste to push the boy this close to a giant wibbling mental breakdown and then bottle it at the last minute, doesn’t it.

Read more:

New “Idol” controversy over David Archuleta’s dad – Reuters