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"Despite being only 15 years old at the time of her initial audition, Lauren Alaina won over the American Idol judges immediately with her mature, melodic singing ability. Drawing inspiration from her country music background, the Rossville, Georgia native continued to wow the panel as well as audiences throughout the competition by staying true to herself. She eventually earned her spot alongside eventual winner Scotty McCreery during Tuesday night&amp;#039;s finale. We caught up with Lauren on a press call to hear her thoughts on the competition and her plans for the future...  What was your mindset going into last night&amp;#039;s finale? &amp;quot;I had a feeling that it was going to be Scotty, so I think everything happens for a reason and God has different plans for me. There are hundreds of thousands of people out there who would love to be in second place on American Idol and I&amp;#039;m fortunate to get as far as I did.&amp;quot; You seemed genuinely happy about Scotty&amp;#039;s win. What were you feeling when his name was called? &amp;quot;I will be happy for Scotty forever because we&amp;#039;re great friends. People sometimes fake it, but I&amp;#039;ve always said that no matter what happened at the end, I&amp;#039;d be happy because we&amp;#039;re great friends. He&amp;#039;s so talented, he&amp;#039;s got the look. He sings the same type of music that I sing and he loves Jesus. I couldn&amp;#039;t have picked a better person to come in second to.&amp;quot; What was your favourite part of the finale? &amp;quot;Just being able to sing with Carrie Underwood kind of set up the whole night. She&amp;#039;s amazing, she&amp;#039;s one of my idols.&amp;quot; How difficult was it this past week with your voice problems? &amp;quot;The show must go on always and the doctor came in and took really good care of me and got my voice as good as he could. I just had to go out there and do the best that I could.&amp;quot; Have you had vocal trouble before? &amp;quot;I have actually, but everyone has problems with their voice sometimes. I think I&amp;#039;m getting a little cold or something. My nose is stuffed up and my throat is hurting pretty badly today, but it&amp;#039;s going to be all right!&amp;quot;  What is it about country music that you love so much? &amp;quot;You know, it&amp;#039;s part of me. I was raised on country music. My parents were raised on it and it&amp;#039;s just in my heart.&amp;quot;  Why did you choose to go by Lauren Alaina rather than using your last name? Will you remain Lauren Alaina in the future in terms of your singing career? &amp;quot;Well, I chose not to use [real last name] Suddeth because people never pronounce it right and I knew Ryan Seacrest would have a terrible time saying my last name. I just went with Alaina because it was easier and it had a real sound to it. But I&amp;#039;ll always be Lauren Suddeth. Always!&amp;quot; You said before that you&amp;#039;ve lost weight during the show. Is that something you plan to keep up? &amp;quot;I think it was 16lbs all in all, actually. I will [keep it up]. I haven&amp;#039;t been able to work out &amp;#039;cos I&amp;#039;ve been super busy preparing for the finale. But for the tour I&amp;#039;m going to work out and get to the point where I want to be and not where everyone else wants me to be.&amp;quot;  Do you ever think that you should have waited until you were a bit older to start your career? &amp;quot;No! I feel like people misjudge young people because they think they&amp;#039;re not ready. But I feel like if something&amp;#039;s your dream and you know what you want, then you should go for it.&amp;quot;  You seemed to really grow throughout your time in the competition. Do you feel like you learned things from the experience? &amp;quot;I feel like I had a lot of confidence before the show and then seeing myself on TV and being my own worst critic really threw me back a few notches. But I think that&amp;#039;s a good thing. You always need to realise that there are things you can work on about yourself. The things that I didn&amp;#039;t like about myself I worked on the whole time I was on the show and tried to improve myself. I feel like since there were so many people watching and I could see the outcomes, it was important and helped me grow as a person and as an artist.&amp;quot; What would you most like people to take away about you from your time on the show? &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m not really a blonde! People call me a dumb blonde but I&amp;#039;m not, I&amp;#039;m actually really smart. I love to go to school. My favourite subject is math and I&amp;#039;m actually... I just love high school more than anything, probably.&amp;quot; You&amp;#039;ve become a role model to lots of young girls around the country. Who do you look up to? &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m a huge country music fan and there are so many girls that I look up to, especially Carrie Underwood, which everyone knows because I&amp;#039;ve shouted it out for a while now... I met her, and talking to her I could tell that she genuinely cared that I was there. We went to a party last night for all the contestants and she invited me back to her area and let me talk with her and it was amazing to see that someone I looked up to for so long was actually the person I thought they were. I want girls my age and younger to feel that way about me - that I&amp;#039;m actually the way that I&amp;#039;m portrayed on TV. I&amp;#039;m not fake and I don&amp;#039;t want to mislead people about who I am. I can be serious too and I cry a lot. It&amp;#039;s just who I am. I won&amp;#039;t change who I am for anything. I want to stay true to who I am, have my little country roots and just be available for little girls to look up to me &amp;#039;cos I&amp;#039;ve always looked up to Carrie. It would be the greatest feeling in the world to look up to me the way I look up to her. And I&amp;#039;m still a little girl so I still have time to make that a possibility!&amp;quot;  American Idol airs on Fox &amp;gt; Read the full Q&amp;amp;A with American Idol winner Scotty McCreery More on the American Idol season finale: &amp;gt; Lady GaGa, Beyonc\u00E9, J.Lo perform on American Idol finale: Pictures &amp;gt; American Idol recap: The finale performances &amp;gt; American Idol finale: Stars react &amp;gt; American Idol finale: Former contestants react &amp;gt; Lauren Alaina loses voice before &amp;#039;Idol&amp;#039; final &amp;gt; American Idol finale performance night: Pictures &amp;gt; American Idol attracts record-breaking votes &amp;gt; Poll result: Who should win American Idol? &amp;gt; Read our American Idol news, recaps and features "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/american-idol/interviews/a321723/american-idol-runner-up-lauren-alaina-qa/>