MONDO EXTRAS

Jangela: On the dance auditions, Travis didn't come up in front of us for long periods of time like he did with the other girls. He came up and showed us one move and said, "I want you to do this," and we did it and that was pretty much it. He had us walk forward towards the camera and then walk away and that's it.

Pamie: Have you kept in touch with any of the others?

Jangela: Before we found out who the twenty-six were, I kept in touch with Shaunda Johnston. She's from St. Louis. There was an unconfirmed rumor that she had a record deal going into the auditions with someone else, which may have been why she's in Atlanta. Shaunda, they kind of show her as being this egomaniac, because she's confident of what she's got, but she's the first girl who if you had a problem or needed help at the auditions for a dance move or getting a certain pitch, she would have been the first girl there to help you out. After the auditions were over she was in tears. That second day, by the time we got to the third cuts or whatever, we didn't have anything to do but sit down, talk, sleep, sing, whatever, and get to know each other. And she was pretty overwhelmed by that because she's used to being by herself, so she was upset to see everything end. That's why it was so great that she got to go to L.A., so everything didn't end for her just yet.

My friend Sunday became famous at the Atlanta auditions. She is nuts and anyone that auditioned in Atlanta knows how she is.

I kept in touch with Crystal, who you'll see, and CJ and I have kept in touch. That's Curtisha, CJ. She goes by CJ and is going to be so embarrassed when she finds out they're calling her Curtisha.

Pamie: Tell me about your auditions.

Jangela: Anyone that sang "What A Girl Wants" seemed doomed. I switched at the last minute to the Leann Rimes song.

It's different when you're singing for people so they can enjoy you versus when they critique you. Toni Braxton [her callback song] has a low range anyway, but I started too low.

Jaymes was like, "It's a really tough song, especially when you start too low" and let me start from the chorus.

Pamie: Do you feel you were represented fairly?

Jangela: To this day I don't know if I was brought back because they liked me or if because they had a story on me. They didn't ask me any questions at all and they had made their decisions so quickly about me. And there were tears streaming down the right side of my face after the second audition, and it's because I had something caught in my contact lens and it was killing me.