A close friend was actually a judge on one of those "find the next star" shows, for singers. He says they pulled some really shady shit over on the kids - hande

A close friend was actually a judge on one of those "find the next star" shows, for singers. He says they pulled some really shady shit over on the kids - handed them a massive contract and two days to "review it" or they'd be dropped from the show; and this was after they'd made it past the first round of culling. The contract was also very unfavorable to the kids, basically putting them completely at the mercy of the record label, for way too many years (and probably a lot more - not my circus, and it's been awhile). I don't remember how it all turned out, except that the specific kid my friend was mentoring through all this went on to win. That same friend has his own troubles with his original label. After making it big, he started to change direction, and the label just stopped putting his stuff out. Really put a damper on his career, since he basically dropped of the map until he got out from under them.