Justin Guarini has spoken about the dark spiral that followed his sudden rise to fame, and the moment his Hollywood dream fell apart. Guarini finished second to Kelly Clarkson on the first season of American Idol in 2002, and he was thrust into the spotlight almost overnight. Within a year, his record deal was gone, and he found himself in a place he now counts as one of the greatest blessings of his life.
Justin Guarini learned that his label, RCA, had dropped him while he was watching television. In his new book, Center Stage Confidence: How to Own Your Story and Command Any Room, he recalled hearing the news during a Weekend Update segment on Saturday Night Live. “I stared at the TV in shock as my entire world came crumbling down around my ears,” he wrote. “Every illusion of fame, fortune, and glory fell away in an instant, only to be replaced by the silence of loss.”
The fall was fast. Justin Guarini released his self titled debut album in 2003, and it entered the top 20 of the Billboard 200 chart. He also starred with Clarkson in the musical romantic comedy From Justin to Kelly, which flopped at the box office. Criticism of his performance and his appearance kept coming, and the work dried up. He told Fox News Digital that the months that followed were a period of isolation.
Guarini has also spoken about a different nerve wracking moment from the show itself. He said he forgot his lyrics while performing on American Idol in front of 30 million people, and he described the lapse as lasting about half a second, although it felt like five years. He compared the sensation to his hair being on fire. The moment came up in a conversation with PauseRewind host Kevin Zelman, and it sits in the book alongside the story of the lost record deal.
Justin Guarini and the months after the fall
“I spent months playing my sad story on repeat,” Justin Guarini wrote in his book. “I lost weight, slept more and more, and became less and less like myself, and the people who loved me started to notice and worry. I was living the ghost of the life I had always dreamed of and burning money and time in equal and absurd measure.” He said he did not want to get out of bed, look at himself in the mirror or go out and see anything.
The isolation was made worse by where he lived. Justin Guarini told Fox News Digital that it was easy to withdraw when he lived behind a gate in an exclusive community, out of sight of the people who cared about him. He described a cascading effect, in which each setback made the next one harder to face. The bottom line, he said, was being willing to sit in that place of failure and discomfort, learn about himself and keep going.
Justin Guarini and the slow rebuild
The rebuild came in stages. Justin Guarini released a second album independently in 2005, then found work in television before making his Broadway debut in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown in 2010. He went on to appear in American Idiot, Romeo and Juliet and Wicked. In 2015, he became widely recognised again as Lil Sweet, the flamboyant character in the Diet Dr Pepper commercials.
His view of failure changed along the way. “I think it was one of the greatest things that could ever have happened to me,” Justin Guarini told Fox News Digital about losing the record deal. “Failure is the greatest teacher, one of the greatest teachers that we can have in any given situation because in that failure, you have one of two paths. You either give up or you keep going.”
Nearly 25 years after his Idol debut, Justin Guarini said his successes and failures have taught him one thing, which is not to give up. “And so, for me, it has been almost 25 years now of some awesome ups and downs, and every single time I go up and down and up and down, it is just a consistency again of staying in the game,” he said. His book, Center Stage Confidence, is now available, and it draws on the forgotten lyrics, the lost record deal and the long road back.