Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Her audition: Mikenley Brown, 19, of New Castle, Indiana, performed “Teenage Dream” by Katy Perry. She slowed down the song, quite impressively. And that prompted very early chair turns from Adam Levine and John Legend. When Mikenley hit the chorus she got a chair turn from Kelly Clarkson as well. Adam loved her tasteful version of the song. Kelly called her tone “incredible” and said she doesn’t have anyone on her team like Mikenley. John called her performance “so cool” and said he believes she can go far on the show. Mikenley decided to join Team Kelly.

Here’s more about Mikenley:

* She’s a singer-songwriter from New Castle, Indiana who will be celebrating The Voice premiere in a big way.

* Her debut EP “Pretty Girlz Cry” dropped last month. It features three songs she says are true stories from her own life.

* Adds Mikenley: “I know these songs are more sad/emotional songs, but I pray that while u listen to them, u also see where I am at now and that it gives u a sense of HOPE. Hope that even if things are terrible for u right now, there IS a light at the end of the tunnel. And that no matter what anyone says about u OR to u that if u believe in yourself you CAN do whatever it is that your heart desires.”

* The songs likely stem from her struggle with anorexia, which began back in 2019 when she was being bullied “for how I looked, dressed and my beliefs.”

* Mikenley outlined that struggle in an old Instagram post, writing “I lost all my friends, sat at lunch by myself, cried in the bathroom multiple times a day, and started starving myself.” She dropped from 180 pounds to 118 and wound up in the hospital multiple times because she kept getting sick.

* The moral of her story, she says, is simple. “WORDS HURT!” she writes in that Instagram post. “I almost killed myself bcuz of ‘words’ people said to me. This is extremely hard for me to share because I’m NOT a vulnerable person at all. But this is not okay! Treating people w kindness goes such a long way — trust me.”

* By the time she auditioned for American Idol Season 21 at age 17 in 2023, Mikenley had pulled through that struggle. She made it to the Top 55 on Idol before being eliminated.

* She has since collaborated with Song House in Nashville on a debut single called “Good. Bad. Better.” It came out in 2023 and has been streamed more than 830,000 times on Spotify alone. Check out the song below.

* Mikenley hails from a musical family. Her great grandfather performed with country music legends Conway Twitty and Dottie West and she grew up leading worship with her mother and father.

Mikenley on social media:
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