Iowa native wins American Idol season 16
Maddie Poppe of Clarksville, Iowa was named the winner of the renewed beloved competition show.
Photo courtesy of ABC
May 22, 2018
On Monday, May 21, the first American Idol winner from Iowa was crowned. Maddie Poppe, a fan favorite from the start, is a 20-year-old Clarksville native and had attended Central Iowa Community College up until her audition for the show.
This win followed multiple performances by Poppe that night, including a “Rainbow Connection” duet with Kermit the Frog and an even more special duet with her newly announced boyfriend and first runner-up of the show, Caleb Lee Hutchinson.
Poppe believes she might owe a lot of her win to judge Katy Perry. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly Poppe said, “I really have to say thank you to [Perry] too, because I know that she tweeted and she was a really big advocate for me. She really believed in me, you know, when a lot of people were going for the more mainstream artist, and she really saw something in me that I couldn’t believe.”
After a magical first season on the network ABC, fans are thrilled to finally have a winner announced. Additionally, the top ten contestants from this season will go on a national tour in late summer through early fall. Fans unable to attend shouldn’t worry though, as ABC has officially announced that American Idol was picked up for another season to air in 2019.
