Ashely sings her way into Top 10

By Dan Hilborn
Published June 18, 2005


Burnaby's own Canadian Idol has made it into the Top 10.

Ashley Leitao, the 18-year-old retail clerk who first captured the hearts and votes of local shoppers when she entered the Burnaby Idol contest at Metropolis at Metrotown in February, has garnered enough votes to move into the final round of the popular TV show.

"I'm doing good, but it hasn't really hit me yet," Leitao said during a Thursday afternoon telephone interview from Toronto. "My mind and body are still numb. I didn't sleep at all last night, but you know, I'm very, very surprised and excited."

Leitao will be coming home this weekend to spend time with her friends and family, before heading back to Toronto on July 19 for the final instalment of the show.

And she'll be riding a wave of euphoria after the show received both a record viewing audience and a record number of votes for the semifinal performers. More than 2.3 million people tuned in to the Tuesday night episode, and the total 1.2 million votes cast was a 36 per cent increase over the previous Canadian Idol record.

Leitao, who finished second in voting behind 16-year-old Daryl Brunt of Sudbury, Ont., made it into the finals by singing Colours of the Wind, the Vanessa Williams tune best known from the Disney film Pocahontas and which she describes as one of her favourite songs of all time.

"It's a great song and it touched my heart when I was seven years old," she said. "It captivated me when I was seven, and it still does now when I'm 18. It's part of who I am."

But even just getting onto stage for the semifinals was a challenge.

"It was nerve-wracking," Leitao said. "All I can remember, if I can describe it, is that I was feeling very heavy. I couldn't move, I couldn't get up and I couldn't walk. And so before I sang my song I hugged Ben (Mulroney, the show's host) and said 'I can't move.' I felt my blood rushing and everything went numb and he said 'Just crawl it out. You can do it.'

"You know what? It was exciting, it was exhilarating, it was a blessing and it was just an amazing time of my life."

Leitao took the long route to qualify for the Canadian Idol series. After finishing second at the unrelated Burnaby Idol competition last winter, she brought her nascent talent to the preliminary Canadian Idol auditions at Canada Place in February, where she won a gold ticket and qualified as one of the top 187 contestants in the country.

In the first week of June, Leitao was chosen by the judges as one of the top 32 contestants before her nerve-wracking Tuesday night performance earned her enough viewers' votes to qualify for show's top 10.

This weekend, Leitao will be coming home to catch up on her sleep and celebrate with her friends and family. "I've been gone for more than a week, and I miss my dad's and brothers' hugs, their voices and my friends."

And she'll need the rest, because if she does win the competition, Leitao will have some mighty big shoes to fill. Last year, Canadian Idol winner Kalan Porter of Medicine Hat, Alta., released the biggest selling debut single for any Canadian artist after his winning song Awake in a Dream went eight times platinum and stayed on top of the Canadian singles charts for more than three months.