Local goes on American Idol

Continued from page A1 grandmother, to whom Amen pays tribute with an inscription on a cross he wears.

“My grandma would say that we have to keep that song in our hearts because we don’t have anyone else but God,” he said.

Before Amen’s audition, Bryan asked him to talk about his life growing up.

“It was a bit rough, not the normal life, of course,” Amen recounted. “We all got taken away from our mom.”

In a voiceover, Amen told a harrowing tale of when police officers took him out of his classroom (at the age of 13, he later told the “Gazette”). A montage of family pics filled the screen.

“I was holding my brother,” he said. “We didn’t know what was going on. We were crying, waiting for Mom. She never came. We were in foster care for a long, long time. I knew I had to raise them right and get them through high school.”

Two of his five siblings, Tyler and Sammie, wound up in Florida, he said, adding that he tracked them down and removed them from foster care when he aged out of the system at 18.

The sibs attended Lake Weir High School and Amen would work odd jobs in construction and restaurant work, and mowed lawns to make ends meet.

“All through my life, I’ve been doing karaoke and everything with my family,” he said. “Even before foster care, before we got taken away, everything was golden. We were a beautiful family. I mean, we still are a beautiful family. We were just broken up.”

Unfortunately, within hours of his success on the stage, Amen said he learned that people were taking advantage of him and his family by creating fake posts and appeals on social media and other sites. He said he immediately began to invest a lot of time and effort in stemming the false information, including spending several hours making sure that people who donated to false appeals got their money refunded.

“American Idol” Season 3 contestant Jennifer Hudson — who’s now known as an EGOT for her Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony wins — has been a big