Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Malaya Watson says she’s a “shy” girl. Really.

In spite of showing more personality in a week than we’ve seen in some of the finalists during the entire course of Season 13.

If you have difficulty envisioning Malaya as shy, you can count on this.

She doesn’t regret trying out for American Idol at age 15 rather than waiting a few years.

After all, she wound up becoming one of the youngest finalists in American Idol history.

“That’s pretty weird. Pretty cool,” she said in a conference call with the media Friday afternoon. “To actually be in the books like that. At the same time, it was hard.”

Particularly difficult, she said, was balancing the time she spent focusing on school work and the time she spent focusing on music.

But her advice to other teens — “Follow what your heart wants you to do. If you want to do something, do it while you have the chance.”

Malaya’s Idol run ended Thursday night when she was eliminated.

So she’ll also go down in the books as the eighth-place finisher in Season 13, struck down by a shaky performance of “Through the Fire,” homeward bound perhaps earlier than some had expected just a couple weeks before.

Of the finalists, she’d shown the most improvement, learning to control her energy on stage and — in most cases — learning not to let it affect her vocals.

Malaya says she also doesn’t regret selecting the Chaka Khan tune for 1980s week. If she has a regret, it’s that she got eliminated one week before she planned to play the tuba as part of her performance.

She played tuba in her high school band back in Smithfield, Mich., and says she still might bust out that tuba during the Idol summer tour.

During the conference call, Malaya also said:

* If she could collaborate with anyone, her first choice would be Season 3 winner Fantasia. That, after all, is the season she started watching Idol.

* She said she thinks Harry Connick Jr. offered the best coaching advice because he was specific about what she needed to work on.

* Harry also offered words of encouragement after her elimination. “He told me to work on my music,” Malaya said. “That I’ll be big one day.”

* That said, she wouldn’t mind giving acting or Broadway a try, though she warns, “I can’t really dance.”

* She envisions making an R&B album, probably with some throwback type songs mixed in, and with lots of collaborations.

* She admitted having trouble controlling her emotions while singing “I Am Changing” for her farewell song Thursday. “I was trying,” she said. “I guess it didn’t work. At the same time, it was cool singing on that stage for a final time. In the end, it’s all good.”