Diana DeGarmo and Ace Young met in Hair. He proposed on the Idol finale

She finished second to Fantasia at 16

DeGarmo was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and grew up in Snellville, a suburb of Atlanta. As a child she sang in Atlanta stage productions of Annie and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. On the third season of American Idol she opened the first semifinal group, on February 11, 2004, with “I've Got the Music in Me,” and she went on to finish second to Fantasia Barrino. Three times she was in the bottom three, and each time she was the first singer sent to safety. RCA released her single “Dreams” that June and her debut album, Blue Skies, in December. In February 2006 she made her Broadway debut in Hairspray as Penny Pingleton.

He placed seventh and wrote a Daughtry chorus

Young grew up in Boulder, Colorado, the youngest of five boys. He auditioned for Idol in Denver after more than four years in Los Angeles without a record deal. For his live Top 24 performance in 2006 he sang George Michael's “Father Figure.” He went out in seventh place, in the Great American Songbook week, with “That's All.” He wrote the chorus of Daughtry's debut single, “It's Not Over,” and with its three other writers, Chris Daughtry among them, he got a nomination for Best Rock Song at the 50th Grammy Awards. In September 2008 he made his Broadway debut as Kenickie in Grease.

• Ace Young: career and music

They met as Sheila and Berger in Hair

In March 2010 both joined the Broadway revival of Hair. DeGarmo took over the role of Sheila from original cast member Caissie Levy on March 9, and Young succeeded Will Swenson as Berger. “It felt like we had the same past. We were both in the Idol frat,” Young told the Oklahoma Gazette in 2014. They stayed until the show closed on June 27, 2010. That September DeGarmo opened the national tour of 9 to 5 as Doralee Rhodes, and the paper reported that it was hard on the couple to be apart for most of a year.

He proposed on the Idol finale stage

On May 23, 2012, before Phillip Phillips was named the winner of season 11, host Ryan Seacrest called the couple to the stage. “This has always been home to us and I felt that this would be the perfect place to ask a simple question,” said Young, then 31. He got down on one knee. “We have conquered Broadway together,” he said. “We have created our new music together.” Then he asked, “Diana Nicole DeGarmo, will you marry me?” DeGarmo, 24, accepted.

They wrote the song for their first dance

They married on June 1, 2013, at the Luxe Sunset Boulevard Hotel in Los Angeles, before about 250 guests, among them other Idol alumni. DeGarmo's brother came back from Afghanistan to walk her down the aisle. The couple wrote their own vows. Young's tuxedo carried lyrics from “I Do,” a song the two wrote together, and “I Do” was their first dance at the reception. That year they also hosted Planet 360, a weekly one-hour entertainment show that began on the Hallmark Movie Channel in March and was canceled in December.

They toured as Joseph and the Narrator

In 2014 and 2015 Young starred as Joseph and DeGarmo as the Narrator in the U.S. national tour of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. DeGarmo had been performing in productions of Joseph since she was a child. “We just kind of put it out into the universe that we'd like to work together,” she told the Oklahoma Gazette. “It was an opportunity we could literally not say no to.” Director Andy Blankenbuehler asked Andrew Lloyd Webber for permission to change a few things, and the couple told the paper that the changes were minor. “Don't worry,” DeGarmo said. “Your Joseph is still there.”

DeGarmo kept singing on stage, from Oz to Little Shop

DeGarmo played Dorothy in Studio Tenn's The Wizard of Oz in Nashville in June 2015 and Lucy in the 2016–2017 world tour of Jekyll & Hyde. She released her second album, Gemini, on August 2, 2019, with a release concert at Sony Hall, and in the summer of 2020 she streamed a live concert of it. In 2023 she played the Witch in a regional production of Into the Woods, and in 2024 Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors. Both have worked as celebrity ambassadors for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Young hosted its New York telethon in 2011, and both took part in its 2012 “Show of Strength” telethon.

• Diana DeGarmo: career and music
• Ace Young: career and music
• Listen to Diana DeGarmo on Spotify
• Listen to Ace Young on Spotify

Three Liechty siblings took the Voice trophy home to Pettisville

Siblings Caleb, Joshua and Bekah Liechty of Pettisville, Ohio, auditioned for The Voice in 2021 as Girl Named Tom with “Helplessly Hoping,” and all four coaches turned. On Kelly Clarkson's team they won the season on December 14, 2021, the first trio to win the show and Clarkson's fourth win as a coach. Wendy Moten finished second. “Kelly, you have really believed in us since day one and that's helped us believe in ourselves,” Bekah said. In January 2023 NBC Insider reported that the siblings had given the trophy to their high school, “where it belongs: our small but mighty hometown, Pettisville, OH!”

• Girl Named Tom: career and music