Is it ever quiet in Idol-Scandalville? We just got rid of Antonella and her wet T-shirts, and now Mario Vazquez resurfaces from Season Four at the front and center of the latest Idol controversy. As you may or may not recall, Mario quit in the middle of Season Four's competition for vague "personal reasons." It now looks like those "personal reasons" may have involved Mario's unwanted sexual advances and a former Idol employee.
In a lawsuit filed on Friday, Magdaleno Olmos claims that Mario Vazquez sexually harrassed him. When he told a supervisor about the harrassment, Olmos was fired. Olmos is suing for wrongful termination, and seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages from Vazquez, American Idol Productions Inc., Fremantle Media North America Inc., Fox Entertainment Group Inc. and Fox Broadcasting Co.
In the lawsuit, Olmos describes an incident in which "Vazquez stared lasciviously, smiled lasciviously . . . and on one occasion followed him into a bathroom . . . knocked on the door of the plaintiff's stall and made eye contact through the space in the stall door."
There are some more graphic details outlined in the suit, but I'll keep it PG here at TVS. For the dirtier details, go to TMZ.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
3-13-2007 @ 11:04PM
artistonfire said...
Everything about this case reeks of fraud. Hopefully American Idol and J Records/Clive Davis will join forces and crush this lying-accuser.
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3-14-2007 @ 12:55PM
Robert Sharp said...
This Idol X is getting way to much attention. Wasn't a very good singer, and his personal life sucks too. Let this looser go on about his business or the lack there of. It appears he's not through with trying to ruin his life and reputation. He only sold 5 albums, of which he bought 4 and Paula bought the other one .
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3-14-2007 @ 6:58PM
j. said...
wish i was in the stall with mario. dude, he is hot as hell in august.
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3-15-2007 @ 1:41PM
Lareno said...
Hey everybody... there are still ALLEGATIONS!!!
There are two sides to every story y'all...
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3-17-2007 @ 1:08AM
regina said...
Mario Vazquez! First sang w/ Michael Jackson..then recorded w/ Cesar..and quit American Idol.
Got signed by Clive Davis..sold no more than 50,000 albums..America don't want him at all so now comes the lawsuit! It's dirty publicity but publicity after all. He desperately needs it.
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3-21-2007 @ 12:50AM
regina said...
I will never understand J Records. Mario quits AI giving "personal reasons". He gets sign by Clive DAVIS. He sells no more than 50,000 albums (ouch!!) CLIVE CAVIS AND CO. THINK MARIO WILL CLICK WITH THE LATINO AUDIENCE IN THE US. Mario gets suit and his music career is sinking. Or maybe it was from the day Clive told him "leave the show.." I think Clive should look at other latin artists to sign to start the second latin explosion!!
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3-25-2007 @ 1:26AM
Regina said...
The Mario Vazquez addendum
45,000 units sold (as of Feb '07).That definitely is not good. And it does go to show that a top 40 hit is not necessarily a guarantee of album sales. Gallery is a top 20 hit in the top 40 format, is up to No. 49 on the all-format national radio airplay chart USA TODAY uses, and scores pretty high on the digital tracks sales chart as well (No. 35). All in all, it must be quite disappointing for BMG to see a reasonably solid hit fail to translate into album sales.
I’m sure BMG is disappointed, but since radio is all about pay-for-play, this is when you get to see if a song is actually connecting with the audience or not. I don’t think Gallery is, it’s just been pushed by the label A LOT for a long time. It was #8 on the Top 40 charts at Mediabase, still with a bullet. I have never seen a top 10 song with sales this poor.
I see him in the “Idol” group solely because his performance is sort of a referendum on how the “public” would view quitting Idol. As much as Idol gets deriding in some quarters, I think quitting and thinking you can then work around the system, especially when you sign with the same label the winners go on, has to be seen as less-then-positive. He quit. I don’t think the public likes quitters. He was signed because Clive Davis thought he’d serve the hispanic-pop demographic (and even said so in one of the press releases about his signing). Just a complete misread, if you ask me.
Now with this lawsuit damaging Mario's name, it will be interesting to see if the label keeps paying to support the album to radio after the first single when the return on investment is obviously not cutting it.
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