Idol Contestant Convinced He's The Next Clay

Another Clay mention on American Idol. Contestant Matthew Paulson who auditoned on the San Francisco episode tonight sang Clay's "Measure of a Man" saying that he believed he had "similarities" with Clay. Ryan Seacrest showed viewers a side-by-side comparison of him vs.Clay. On one side of the screen, Clay footage from the 2003 wildcard round of AI2, along with a clip from "Measure of a Man" rolled, while the audition played on the other side. The judges said the audition was bad. Personally, I thought it was great that Paulson did a Clay song.... we've seen Kelly, Ruben and even Fantasia songs before but this was the first time a Clay song popped up on the audition tour.

Later on, in the same episode, Simon Cowell made a comment on one of the auditioner's image ("I have to somehow see you with your eyes closed") causing Paula Abdul to angrily retort "Well, that's what you said about Clay Aiken" yet Clay has become so successful.

Update 1/28: We received an e-mail from Mr. Paulson himself and he would like to clarify that Simon wasn't even in the room when he auditioned. He sent this to us:

Hi Everyone, It's Matthew Paulson, yes the same one from American Idol. I just wanted to say that I'm a big Clay fan, I would not of done a song from him if I wasn't. Yes I may have sounded bad when I sang it but, and this is the honest truth, I was just getting over the flu before I faced the judges. And you all were fooled. Simon did not say those things to me because he had stormed out of the room before they saw me. Simon was edited in. And that is the truth.