American Idol’s season opener included a very familiar face—Claudia Conway. Conway is the daughter of former-Trump aide Kellyanne Conway and George Conway, a co-founder of The Lincoln Project, a Republican political action committee dedicated to preventing Trump’s re-election in the 2020 campaign. The Conways are a politically divided family: Mom worked for Trump, Dad worked to see Trump leave the White House, and their 16-year-old daughter Claudia Conway identifies as an anti-Trump progressive who has been considered an American hero and “a better journalist than Bob Woodward” by Vox.
During the summer of 2020, Claudia publicly spoke out against her mother’s political beliefs and career on her TikTok account, which has amassed over 1.7 million followers in the past year—launching Claudia into the spotlight. In January, her content became even more serious when Claudia exposed her abusive relationship with Kelly Anne through videos on herTikTok account, which have now mostly been deleted. These videos generated a great deal of attention, with people concerned for Claudia’s well-being. There was even a topless photo of Claudia posted to her mother’s Twitter account at the end of January, and Claudia believes that her mom obtained the photo when she took Claudia’s phone away from her as a punishment. Claudia’s relationship with her parents is very tumultuous and she has talked about getting emancipated from them. But, on American Idol in mid-February, everything seemed to be hunky-dory with the Conway family.
“So you probably know me as ‘15-year-old emancipation girl’ or ‘that blonde woman from Fox News’ daughter’” the teen says in a home video clip. She ensures viewers she’s “a little more than that.” Her dad accompanied her at the audition, which was filmed in November 2020, and Kellyanne video conferenced in to give her daughter some words of support before her audition. It was a very different interaction compared to the videos Claudia has shared on her TikTok over the past year.
“Are you okay?” judge Katy Perry asked Claudia referring to the waves the Conway family made in the news before November. “No, but yes!” the young singer replied. “Most of my life, my feelings had been suppressed, so then I got social media and was like, ‘Well, yeah. Now my voice is being heard,’” she said to the judges, who include Lionel Richie and Luke Bryan in addition to Perry.
She credited music as her escape through the “dark” times she’s gone through. “Now I kind of want to get out of the controversy, get out of the drama, get out of the political-whatever and let people know that, you know, I am a singer and that this is what I wanna do,” she said. Claudia Conway believes in herself—she wants to be a musician, not just the daughter of high-profile Republicans, but American Idol and her parents seem to have a different plan.
Critics online criticized ABC and American Idol for Claudia’s appearance on the show; many people believe the judges only gave her yeses in an attempt to boost their ratings. Having one of the most controversial political families on the show for a few weeks is sure to garner tons of viewers, but it comes at the expense of a young girl. It’s just absolutely cruel.
“I agree, Claudia’s singing is fine, but I’ve watched enough people audition for these shows to gander that she made it there because of who her family is,” Sophie Vershbow wrote for Newsweek. And it’s not like the network is giving Claudia a leg up just for being the daughter of two famous faces—we’ve seen that type of nepotism in Hollywood before and it doesn’t spark criticism anymore. They want her to believe that she’s a great musician, but they know how to play the game, and so do her parents. Conway’s appearance on American Idol is great for her family’s image. Any mother would jump up and down at their child’s success, but it’s hard to believe that Claudia’s parents aren’t using their daughter’s participation in the show as a way to spruce up their image after so much turmoil.
Perry milks emotion out of Conway in her second song, Adele’s When We Were Young, when she tells Conway to think about her childhood. “There’s a sadness there. It’s like you lost your youth because you weren’t able to experience it on your own without all of this noise,” she said. You would think a TV executive or her dad would come out of the wings to embrace her but that’s not why either of them was there. “This, of course, did not happen,” Vershbow writes in her op-ed. “Because there weren’t any adults present—just TV executives happy to give a traumatized young girl her five minutes of fame in order to boost their ratings, and parents who’d rather rehabilitate their own respective images than protect their daughter’s.”
The Conways want Americans to think that music ‘saved’ Claudia from the controversy her family has stirred up over the past four years, but they have only continued to cause more controversy after her audition in November.
Although Claudia has the opportunity to make a name for herself as a musician on American Idol, it will be hard for her to do so with her parents on screen with her. She’s a victim whose abuse comes from not just the media but from inside of her household.
As an audience, we may not have the power to ‘save’ or ‘free’ her from her trauma but we do have a right to respect and believe her allegations. ABC and the Conways are looking to make a few bucks off of the 16-year-old, and they’ll continue to do so if we eat up her exploitation. I’m not asking you to boycott this season of one of the nation’s most popular TV shows, but keep Claudia’s trauma in mind as you watch.
