Idol Chatter & Voice Views

She stepped onto the American Idol audition stage, and Steven Tyler said “yes” before she sang a note.

She left the audition room clutching a golden ticket, and Jennifer Lopez predicted she won’t last a week in Hollywood.

American Idol Season 8 had Bikini Girl (aka Katrina Darrell).  American Idol Season 10 had former Miss Tennessee Stormy Henley.

But when it comes to becoming an overnight sensation thanks to Idol, Brittany Kerr seems to have topped them both.

All it took was a flash of her smile and a little bit of bare tummy.

OK, there was the mention that she was an NBA dancer.  And the images Idol showed of Brittany in her rather revealing dance outfit.

And I must say, I’ve never seen an Idol cameraman film the start of an audition from that angle.

But, heck, Idol didn’t even mention that Brittany was the covergirl on the Charlotte Bobcats swimsuit calendar.

The guys watching Idol that night still went wild.

So, if you were too busy doing image searches for Brittany to read or listen, here are 10 things you might not know about the 24-year-old beauty from the Savannah audition episode.

1.  We owe her audition to fellow Lady Cat Rhema, one of Brittany’s best friends.  They were cruising in Brittany’s car one day when a Pussycat Dolls song came on the radio.  They joined in.  Rhema discovered Brittany could really sing and convinced her to try out for Idol.  That was Rhema congratulating Brittany on TV after she got her golden ticket.

2. The Idol audition was the first time Brittany performed for an audience.  And she had no vocal training, though she admits she took a couple of vocal classes prior to auditioning just to get more confidence in her voice.

3. She admitted to one interviewer that she nearly chickened out and left while waiting her turn to audition in the Savannah heat.  “I looked around in the stadium and I said, ‘Mom, why are we here? What the heck am I doing? I have never even sang in front of anybody. I mean, I’m certified. I’ve lost it. I don’t even know why I think I can do this.'” Mom convinced her to stay.

4. In something we didn’t see on TV, the Idol producers asked Brittany to dance during her audition. So, without music, she sang and danced a little, admitting it was “horrible.” She told 96.9 The Kat she was a thankful that segment wound up on the cutting room floor.  “It could have been real embarrassing.”

5.  As excited as she was to get her golden ticket, Brittany was a little bummed that Jennifer Lopez voted against sending her to Hollywood.  “I really wanted her to be my biggest fan, kind of, and it really wasn’t like that.”

6. She’s often told she looks like Carrie Underwood.  And takes it as quite the compliment.  “She’s gorgeous,” Brittany told the folks on the Ace and TJ show at 96.1 radio.

7. Brittany has two strategies for dealing with stress when she gets nervous, like she figures she would in Hollywood.  She prays a lot.  And she talks to her mom.  “When I’m weak, she gets real strong.”

8. Brittany has a website that looks quite recently launched.  Here’s the link.  Go there and you discover that modeling is her “secret passion.”  And that in 2010 she enterd a Victoria’s Secret Model Search contest and finished in the top 80.  Only the top 80?  Silly judges.

9. About a week after Brittany’s audition aired, Down Home Films released an extended video for the Orion song “Watch You Fall.”  It co-stars — that’s right — Brittany Kerr as a fighter’s girlfriend who proves not very trustworthy. Check it out here.  It’s excellent. Just be forewarned, some of the lyrics are explicit.  Oh, and they mention American Idol.

10.  As for all of you who went searching for photos after Brittany’s appearance on Idol, you apparently crashed two websites that couldn’t handle the traffic — that of her management, Enkamp, and that of photographer Jim Merrill, who photographed Brittany several times for “Elevate,” a Charlotte-area magazine.  Want to crash another?  Go here for excellent photos of Brittany as a Lady Cat.  They were taken since her Idol audition aired.

Oh, and guess what?  The folks at 96.9 The Kat made Brittany sing another snippet of “Spoiled” by Joss Stone.

And the Lady Cat can really sing.

But will she survive Hollywood Week?  Or will Jennifer’s prediction come true?

We’ll find out over the course of the next three episodes of Idol.