Barba Gone Wild? Offer Worth $250,000
By Kathy Lauer-Williams, The Morning Call, Allentown, Pa.
Mar. 9–Now the most searched name on Google after her racy spring-break-style photos started circulating on the Internet, “American Idol” semifinalist Antonella Barba was offered $250,000 Wednesday to host the latest installment of “Girls Gone Wild.”
Joe Francis, founder of the video franchise known for taping college girls exposing themselves at parties, says he made the offer because Barba has become a sensation since the photos surfaced in late February.
Barba, 20, a New Jersey girl who competed against seven other women on the Fox reality show Wednesday, was one of 16 semifinalists.
Thursday night, however, she was one of four contestants voted off.
“Antonella Barba is an unbelievably sexy girl who obviously knows how to have a good time,” Francis says is a new release announcing his “Girls Gone Wild” offer.
He isn’t the one hoping to cash in on Barba’s notoriety. Gossip Web site TMZ.com is reporting that SugarDVD, the largest renter of adult DVDs online, has offered Barba $500,000 to become their spokeswoman and launch their new video-on-demand service.
The Point Pleasant, N.J., native bucked the odds by staying on “Idol” despite less-than-stellar vocal performances, as well as being singled out by “Vote for the Worst,” a Web site that encourages viewers to vote for the worst performer.
She also was the singer who relegated Bethlehem’s Marisa Rhodes to runner-up when Barba was chosen as the last semifinalist. The two singers went before the judges together, and Rhodes was sent home from Hollywood.
Barba gained Internet notoriety when photos ranging from merely naughty to graphically sexual began appearing on the Web. She has not commented on the photos or disputed that the images are of her.
But her best friend, Amanda Coluccio of Holmdel, N.J., who also competed on “Idol” and was dropped during the Hollywood round, has denied Barba is the girl in the sexually graphic photos.
Fox has declined to comment on the pictures.
And now fans of Frenchie Davis, the “Idol” contestant kicked off the show in 2003 for photos of her topless that appeared on the Web, are saying she was treated unfairly.
Fans of Davis, her manager Belinda Foster and civil rights activist Najee Ali staged a small protest Tuesday outside the Kodak theater in Los Angeles, where “Idol” tapes. A fan group led by Chris Tian, a singer-songwriter in Portsmouth, N.H., also has asked Fox to give Davis another shot at competing on the show.
Davis says she would welcome a public apology but that she is owed more for “the manner in which I was humiliated and the manner in which Antonella was defended and protected by the same people who humiliated me.”
She declined to say if she would seek a financial settlement or a record contract or other deal.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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