Once upon a time, American Idol was the biggest thing on television, churning out music superstars left and right. The original Fox series ended with Season 15 in 2016, but it wasn’t long before it came back to the small screens. The singing competition made its return in 2018 on ABC with OG host Ryan Seacrest and has been running ever since.
Now, American Idol Season 21 premieres Sunday, February 19 at 8/7c on ABC (its sixth season on the network), and judges Katy Perry, Lionel Richie, and Luke Bryan will be on the hunt for the next Idol success story. The search begins in New Orleans, Las Vegas, and Nashville in the first episode, with audition episodes set to continue for several more Sundays.
As evidenced by the hit-makers the show has produced, American Idol has a longer history of finding stars than its fellow singing competitions like The Voice (even if some of those stars ended up as coaches on the NBC reality series). Here, we look back at the nine singers who represent American Idol‘s biggest success stories (in no particular order) ahead of the show’s return.
Who’s your favorite of them all?
American Idol, Sundays, 8/7c, ABC