Whatever Happened To American Idol Winner Lee DeWyze?

While every "American Idol" fan can name past winners like Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood, not everyone may remember Season 9's winner, Lee DeWyze. The year was 2010, and Ellen DeGeneres had joined the judging panel to replace longtime judge Paula Abdul. Although he won over viewers with his pleasant voice, love of guitar, and trademark blazers with loosened ties, he was an "American Idol" winner who didn't get the success he likely expected.

You may remember Phillip Phillips, who won a few years later — he had a bona fide hit titled "Home" that aired ad nauseam during the 2012 Summer Olympics — and other smaller-time winners who came before and after DeWyze. Unfortunately, since "American Idol" crowned him over Crystal Bowersox, DeWyze and his music career quickly began the long slide into irrelevancy. But that's not to say he disappeared entirely.

Here's a look at what he's been up to since he emerged victorious that one glorious day in 2010.

Upon winning "American Idol," the idol given a song to sing at the finale and release as their first single. That's how we got Kelly Clarkson's iconic "A Moment Like This," and it's the process that gave us Carrie Underwood's "Inside Your Heaven," which is, to date, her only No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. 

While many "Idol" winners had bespoke songs written for their coronations, Lee Dewyze sang and released a cover of "Beautiful Day" by U2. The song climbed all the way to No. 24 on the Hot 100 — still his highest-charting song — but DeWyze wasn't particularly a fan of what he put out as his introduction to the music industry. He said as much publicly within days of winning "American Idol," telling USA Today, "It's a good song. It's not really my genre, no, but there were songs on the table, and I went with the one I thought represented me the best. I don't know the reasoning behind which songs you get to pick."

Still, DeWyze understood what he'd signed up for by agreeing to appear on the show. "A big part of the game is to play by the rules. If it was up to me, I would have had longer songs and really get into the songs, rather than just 'Ready! Go!'" He concluded, "But accepting is the hard part." The interview was the first in a series of many similar comments by the singer confessing his displeasure with the show that made him famous.

Lee DeWyze won "American Idol" in the first few months of 2010, and by the end of the year, he had his debut album, "Live It Up," ready to go. Well, to be more specific, this wasn't the first album he'd ever released. DeWyze had put out other music before auditioning for the reality competition show, but this album marked his major label debut, thanks to a longstanding deal between the producers of "American Idol" and producer Simon Fuller's label, 19 Entertainment.

Teasing the record in a statement to Billboard, DeWyze said, "I've been very fortunate to be able to collaborate with some amazing songwriters on new songs over the past three months. I can't wait for everyone to hear my debut album."

Unfortunately, "Live It Up" was record-breaking in all the wrong ways. When the album dropped that November, DeWyze won the unfortunate distinction of an "American Idol" winner with one poorest-charting and worst-selling debut albums in the show's history. DeWyze only managed to move 39,000 copies during the week of its release, and the album reached only as high as no. 19 on Billboard's Top 200. For comparison, Carrie Underwood's first album following "Idol" hit No. 1 of the Top 200 and sold 318,000 copies in its first week. As you can see, it was not a great start to the career of someone who won a reality show meant to create music industry superstars.

In keeping with "American Idol" tradition, Lee DeWyze appeared on the season finale of "Idol" the year after he won. He'd performed one of his singles during the season, but during the finale celebration, DeWyze didn't have much to do; instead, he just sort of hung back onstage while Scott McCreery was crowned the Season 10 champion (fun fact: McCreery's song "Five More Minutes" later inspired a Hallmark movie of the same name). Longtime "American Idol" producer Nigel Lythgoe took to X to complain about the "Idol" vet's behavior, writing, "I was so upset Lee DeWyze wouldn't present the winners trophy to Scotty. Especially as he'd been on the show this Season. I guess he was shy."

DeWyze took issue with that, firing back on social media with a statement. Before correcting the record, however, he offered some public congratulations to that year's winner and runner-up. "First off I want to say congrats to Scotty & Lauren, awesome job," he tweeted (via OK! magazine). "Well done Scotty!" Then he went in on Lythgoe. "I was not asked to be involved in the Finale. It wasn't until about 2 minutes before they announced that Nigel had approached me and asked if he could 'borrow' me for a second. I didn't feel a last second jump on stage was appropriate. It was Scotty's moment."

Nevertheless, DeWyze tried to quash the feud before it got started. "I am not angry, or bitter etc. It was an amazing Finale, and I would have loved to be a part of it," he wrote. "I just wasn't asked."

Between the poor record sales of Lee DeWyze's debut album and his very public disagreement with the producers of the show, it's no surprise that the "Sweet Serendipity" singer lost his record deal with 19 Entertainment, a label under RCA Records, shortly thereafter. Owned by Sony, 19 Entertainment had represented "American Idol" winners since the beginning, but they also weren't shy about dropping people when they didn't perform.

Peter Edge, the CEO of RCA, spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about what, exactly, went wrong. "The best 'Idol' results come from doing great A&R," he said, referring to the music industry practice of Artists and Repertoire, which includes matching label talent with the right songs. "The TV platform provides amazing coverage, but if you don't have the right songs, it doesn't really mean a whole hell of a lot," he said, "because we've seen 'American Idol' winners come and go in a heartbeat." Edge went on to seemingly subtly accuse DeWyze of being difficult to work with, adding, "Those where the A&R wasn't the best, or they weren't willing to be A&R'd, they didn't last."

For his part, a representative of DeWyze also spoke with the outlet. "[He's] in a good place right now," the rep insisted, perhaps unconvincingly.

While Lee DeWyze's mainstream music career might have been in trouble, his personal life seems to have been thriving. He met model and actor Jonna Walsh on the set of the music video for his single "Sweet Serendipity."The song's title was quite apt, as the two fell madly in love, and in 2012, they married. DeWyze gushed about his bride to People, telling the outlet, "She gets me and supports me, and I do the same for her." Walsh had nothing but beautiful things to say about her new husband, too. "He's my best friend," she told the magazine. "From the moment I met him I was able to be myself. I'm a total goofball."

While the couple told People that they were looking forward to starting a family some day, they haven't gone public with any children. Instead, DeWyze frequently shows love to his wife on Instagram, writing long captions each wedding anniversary about how in love they still are after all these years. In 2020, for example, he wrote, "Life has had many things in store for us over the years. From the blissful & beautiful, to the heartbreaking and unexpected." He continued, writing, "Every one of those moments we have shared together has left us with something we carry with us, and I can't imagine carrying any of those moments or memories with anyone but you."

Lee DeWyze has never been one to shy away from complaining about the "American Idol" machine. In 2013, a mere three years after winning the show, DeWyze wrote a piece for The Daily Beast about what a tough road he'd had since he was crowned the winner of the reality show. He confessed that he'd never really expected to win the whole thing, writing, "I would say that I didn't really know what I was getting myself into. It's kind of like when you go to a carnival and you see the basketball game, and you're like, 'I'll just take a shot and see what happens.'" DeWyze insisted that he never went onstage hoping to beat the other contestants but rather tried to perform the best he could each week.

He admitted, "I can't sit here and say winning 'American Idol' was everything I thought it would be and that it's perfect." DeWyze said he felt lost. After all, that was the first season without Paula Abdul, and it was also to be the now-unrecognizable Simon Cowell's final season. There was a lot of media attention around the show, in other words, that had little to do with him. "I was being kind of lost in all that mix," he said. "There was just so much happening."

Still, DeWyze said he looked forward to soldiering on, even though his music career no longer had the backing of a major label. "I'm going to be happy, because I know that what I'm doing right now is what I'm supposed to be doing. And I'm really proud of it," he said. "Whether I sell 100 billion albums or one, I'm still the same person."

Lee DeWyze did indeed keep on trucking, releasing music regularly and independently in the decade that followed his "American Idol" win. DeWyze toured consistently, performing his music to audiences around the country that likely first found out about him on "American Idol" but weren't willing to drop him when his record company did.

In 2021, DeWyze released an album called "Ghost Stories." The album was partially inspired by what the world had gone through over the previous few years, dealing with mass death on a frightening scale that most of us had never experienced before. DeWyze told Chorus.fm that when the world stopped, he had to force himself to be creative again, and he's happy with the songs that came out of that process. "I can genuinely say my blood, sweat, and tears went into this record, more than I can say that about maybe any record I've ever made," he said. "It carries a different weight for me."

DeWyze also discussed an interesting distinction in his career: Despite the flop of his debut album, he'd gone on to have more syncs than any other "Idol" contestant. This means that even though his songs weren't huge hits, they'd been used in more movies and television shows than anyone else. And that makes him one of the surprisingly richest "American Idol" winners. "I've always loved the movies, and I've always loved television," he said, "even from growing up."

As Lee DeWyze noted in his 2020 anniversary post to his wife, his life and career have had a number of ups and downs. Unfortunately, he faced another significant setback in 2023, when his longtime manager Brett Radin died. DeWyze told Lyndsanity that Radin had been instrumental (no pun intended) in keeping his career on track in the years after "American Idol," always willing to offer him a pep talk when he was feeling down. "Brett, if there's one thing he always understood, it was like, 'Dude, you're more than this show. There's a lot more to your career and things you should be doing,'" DeWyze recalled. "He was always very supportive of that. So, losing him was a big kick in the f***ing gut, man."

While mourning his longtime friend, DeWyze went into the studio and emerged with an album titled "Gone For Days." He told Lyndsanity that the album represented one of his greatest achievements to date, and he said that he was proudest of this work. "It felt for the first time ... that I was like, 'I really do have something to say and this is how I happen to do that. This is what I do," he said. "This album has rejuvenated this thing in me. It feels like it's my first record, almost. I've fallen back in love with why I do this."

Whereas many of his albums since winning "American Idol" had been released to little fanfare aside from his hardcore fans, Lee DeWyze went all-in on promoting his 2024 record "Gone For Days." That included an early 2025 stop at "The Kelly Clarkson Show," where he connected with a woman who knows a thing or two about what it's like to win "Idol." While on the show, he performed "Devil in the Details," one of the album's singles. "You heard Kelly, go check it out!!" he wrote on Instagram alongside a video of his performance.

This was likely the first time a lot of "Idol" fans had seen DeWyze since his days on reality television, which means many "Kelly Clarkson Show" viewers were unaware that his trademark goatee had become a full-fledged beard, although he's hardly the only "American Idol" contestant who's unrecognizable now. "That can't be him!" one fan commented on YouTube (via The Sun). For the most part, fans were supportive of his return to the spotlight. "We haven't seen him for a while! I'm glad he's still at it," one viewer wrote. "Good for him," another added. "A lot of people put him in the forgotten winners pile but he's been doing his thing." In fact, that's perhaps the best way to sum up what happened to Lee DeWyze in the years since he won "American Idol:" He's been doing his thing.