WESTON, MA– Indian-American Sonika Vaid made to top 6 in the American Idol singing competition Thursday night. Avalon Young and Lee Jean were eliminated.
The final six include Vaid, MacKenzie Bourg, Trent Harmon, Tristan McIntosh, Dalton Rapattoni, and La’Porsha Renae. They move on next week.
Vaid’s cover of Whitney Houston’s “I Have Nothing” at the show earned her a spot in the final six.
NBC News reported that 20-year-old Vaid, who grew up in Weston and Martha’s Vineyard, never craved the limelight.
“I had so many opportunities to sing when I was a little kid, and I never took them up,” Vaid told NBC News. “I was just really comfortable being behind the piano because I would play upright piano, and I could perform in assemblies, and no one would see my face.”
Vaid is an Indian-American whose parents came to the United States as kids. She is a summer resident of Martha’s Vineyard, and a 2013 graduate of Weston High School, Weston, MA. Currently, she is a sophomore at William Smith College in New York.
