Idol Chatter & Voice Views

If anyone emerges as the star of what I’ll dub American Idol’s Lost Episode in Los Angeles, it’s likely to be belly dancer Heidi Khzam.

And, guess what? One of her favorite entertainers is Shakira.

“People compare me to her because she has a Lebanese background like me,” Heidi says in her Idol video interview. “And she can belly dance, obviously.”

Immediately after Thursday’s episode, I started googling all sorts of versions of Heidi’s name to see if I could get more information on her background.

Except for finding out that she likely graduated from Agoura High School in California as part of the Class of 2005, I struck out.

But the Idol video provides a little more info.

She won a chance to appear before the judges through a MySpace audition.

“I only had three hours to create a MySpace account, post a video and sing,” the 23-year-old from Agoura Hills, Calif., says.

Heidi tells Idol she’s been singing all her life and that she’s inspired by her grandmother.

Another of her favorite performers: Adam Lambert.

The best advice she’s gotten: To have fun in life. “Because often, we seem to forget.”

“I don’t like to follow the herd. I like to stand out,” Heidi says.

She accomplished that in Idol’s Thursday’s episode by the way she moved and by the howl she elicited from Steven Tyler, who tapped out the beat while she danced.

After she finished dancing, he asked if Heidi had something “you can sing for us, real quick.”

She sang “Super Woman” well enough to get a ticket to Hollywood. Heck, Randy didn’t even wait for Jennifer Lopez to weigh in before he shouted out “welcome to Hollywood.”

As Heidi departed the audition room, Jennifer was caught muttering, “Simmer it down.” In hindsight, I think she was talking about her judging cohorts, who were in the middle of proclaiming Heidi “incredible” and “one of the best we’ve ever seen,” comments clearing aimed to razz J-Lo.

In her Idol video, Heidi said she was touched by Jennifer’s reaction to her song — a reaction that didn’t make the cut in the 1-minute plus clip we saw on Idol.

“Jennifer Lopez, was able to see … I just sang a song to her, and she said, ‘I can feel that you still have some pain hidden underneath everything,'” Heidi told Idol, without elaborating on that pain.

“This is my chance,” Heidi said, “the light at the end of the tunnel for me.”

If you missed it, here’s her audition.