American Idol season 23

The twenty-third season of American Idol premiered March 2, 2025, on ABC.^[1] Ryan Seacrest returned as host; Luke Bryan, and Lionel Richie returned as judges, along with season four winner Carrie Underwood replacing Katy Perry as a judge.^[2][3][4]

The Idol Across America virtual auditions program returned and remote auditions were held from August 12 to September 9, 2024, as well as a number of open-call auditions, From these, the producers selected the contestants who were then invited to audition in front of the judges.^[5]

The "platinum ticket" also returned from the previous three seasons. During the audition round, a total of three platinum tickets were awarded. The platinum ticket recipients were Kolbi Jordan, Filo, and Canaan James Hill.

Dubbed the "Idol Arena", each of the 144 contestants were chosen at random to perform a solo, and sixty-two of them advanced to the next round. The three platinum ticket recipients (Kolbi Jordan, Filo, and Canaan James Hill) sang. Their advantage was the ability to skip this round, but were asked to do a bonus performance. Joining them would be 59 additional contestants who cleared the Idol Arena, while the other 82 were eliminated. The "Showstoppers" round determined the Top 24 semifinalists.^[6] In a twist after the Showstoppers round, while cuts were made, the judges chose four contestants to advance to the Top 24 and the remaining 42 competed in the Head to Head round. During the round they had 24 hours to pick a partner and prepare a duet performance. After the duets, the judges chose 20 to be in the Top 24.^[7]

The Showstopper round featured the top 62 contestants performing for the judges and a live audience at the Barker Hangar. This round was filmed on January 27, 2025, and aired on April 7, 2025. The judges then narrowed the number of contestants down to 46, with 4 of them advancing to the Top 24. Five contestants that advanced to the Top 24 (Ché, Penny Samar, Josh King, Kyana Fanene, and Baylee Littrell) did not have their Showstopper performance aired.^[7][8] The next night, a new "Head to Head" round was featured where the remaining 42 contestants sang for 20 spots to advance. On the episode, Jelly Roll debuted as the "Artist in Residence" and he will mentoring the contestants for the rest of the season.^[8]

The top 24 contestants were split into two groups of twelve and performed one solo each at the Aulani resort in Kapolei, Hawaii. The first group taped performances on February 11 which aired on April 13, while the second group taped on February 12 and aired on April 14. Ashanti was a guest mentor and judge for the first group, and Josh Groban for the second group. Two contestants from each group will be eliminated based on the public vote, and the rest will advance to the top 20.^[10] Contestants are listed in the order they performed.

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The top 20 performances aired on Sunday, April 20, followed by the live results show on Monday, April 21. Due to the top 20 performances airing on Easter, the theme for the episode was "Songs of Faith."

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Contestants are listed in the order they performed.

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