Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Casey Abrams is out of the hospital and apparently preparing for another round of competition on American Idol.

Nigel Lythgoe sent out a tweet very early this morning saying Casey was released from the hospital Sunday afternoon.

“I hope he doesn’t have to go back,” Nigel wrote. “Send positive thoughts!”

If you can’t detect the brainwaves, I’m sending Casey positive thoughts.

Because watching him perform the last two weeks has been a treat.

If I’m reading the timing of Nigel’s tweet correctly, Casey likely missed this week’s Ford video shoot and some important preparation time for this week’s show. He would have spent parts of four days in the hospital.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Casey is suffering from “ulcerative colitis, an inflammatory bowel disease which affects the lining of the large intestine.”

If his health doesn’t fail him, Casey looks like the early favorite to win the Season 10 crown.

And he’s attracting a slew of followers … on Idol and on Twitter.

When American Idol unveiled social media sites for the finalists a couple of weeks ago, I reported that Paul McDonald and Scotty McCreery quickly bolted to the lead in terms of Twitter followers.

Casey has since surpassed them. He had about 27,950 as of 11:30 a.m. That’s about 500 more than Scotty and about 4,500 more than Paul.

In fact, they’re the only three contestants to top the 20,000-mark at this point. Closing in on that top are Lauren Alaina (19,850) and Thia Megia (19,650).

Rounding out the rest of the finalists: 6) Pia Toscano (about 18,400); 7) James Durbin (about 17,800); 8 —  Stefano Langone (about 16,150); 9) Jacob Lusk (about 11,000); 10) Karen Rodriguez (about 10,075); 11) Haley Reinhart (about 9,700) and 12) Naima Adedapo (about 9,050).

Update: Earlier today via Twitter, Casey confirmed: ” I AM out of the hospital, feeling so energetic too. I owe it all to Tigerblood.”

Ah, that Casey, forever the jokester.