Harry Connick Jr. Schools Quentin Alexander On Respect: Was The ‘American Idol’ Judge Right?

American Idol has had few dramatic moments this season, but tonight a minor scuffle between judge Harry Connick Jr. and contestant Quentin Alexander is causing a bit of a stir. After his first performance of the evening, Alexander expressed his displeasure at the fact that two of his fellow Idol hopefuls, Joey Cook and Rayvon Owen, were the bottom two and one was to be sent home.

Alexander said, “This is wack,” before exiting the stage. Connick said the comment was disrespectful.

“If it’s wack, you can always go home. ‘Idol’ is paying a lot of money to give you this experience, and for you to say that to the hand that’s feeding you right now is highly disrespectful.”

Alexander said he was talking about his dislike of saying goodbye to his friend, not the Idol process itself. Connick still insisted Idol is a competition. Quentin explained further.

“For my personal feelings, it sucks to see two people who I’ve grown to love go home. That’s what I mean by it being wack. So I’m not disrespecting this competition.”

You can see the video of the confrontation in the video below.

After Alexander’s second performance, Jennifer Lopez gave him some words of advice about what happened.

“I feel that you’re in a little bit of a sensitive mood. I understand that this is a lot of pressure. That is part of being an artist. We have to get out in front of people. We have to control our emotions. I know that inside you have a good heart. You displayed something earlier that kind of threw everybody. It was against what I know of you and I just want to say all of that you need to be an artist, you do but you also know how to control it and always put your heart out there first.”

At the end of the evening, Quentin Alexander’s close friend Joey Cook was eliminated.

Newsdaycommented that “most viewers realized that Quentin had no quarrel with the judges,” and CarterMatt was much tougher on Connick.

“[Connick’s] calling out of Quentin Alexander, a fellow New Orleans guy, one might add, for rather innocent remarks feels kind of appalling and beyond reproach for a pretty fun show.”

CarterMatt also pointed out that Connick could be heard asking if the show was still on live, and not thrown to commercial, before he proceeded to admonish Alexander.

What do you think? Was this an overblown bit of American Idol drama?

[Quentin Alexander/Harry Connick, Jr. images courtesy of Getty]