Meet Britani Bateman’s niece on American Idol, and what her life is like outside of singing

Britani Bateman‘s niece, Carmen Lorell, is now starring on American Idol after a seriously impressive audition. Obviously, The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star had to intervene in her first attempt at fame, and sing while Carmen played the piano.

We’ve all seen the chaos that Britani can bring to a reality show, so can Carmen do the same?! Well, she’s 20 years old, dedicated to Christian faith as a missionary, loves her family, regularly attends sports games, and seriously loves country music.

Carmen proudly supports the BYU Basketball team at her college and is now focusing on her singer-songwriter career. She’s also super close to her Dad, as they go always dirt-biking together, and shares loads of TikTok videos about her life while living in a trailer.

But the basement flooded, so she’s now living upstairs in her aunt’s house. She works as a choir teacher and is open about her love life, claiming that she is “wishing for a relationship that she won’t mess up” and wrote a song for people who feel like they ruin romances.

She’s now in the next round of American Idol, after singing Thought It Was Love by Ty Myers and then, Let Me Be Your Star from the show Smash, with Britani. Loads of people think Britani didn’t need to be there, and sort of overshadowed her moment.

Carmen actually sung at her family member’s wedding and was in a High School Musical theatre performance in 2024 as Kelsi Neilson. To be honest, she’s just as iconic as Britani, so I’m not even surprised she was given the golden ticket to Hollywood Week!

One of the judge, Luke Bryan, said he still thought Carmen could afford to “cut loose a little bit” and that sitting behind the piano made her a little “proper,” while Lionel Ritchie joked: “I think the only way she’s going to understand ‘roughing up’ is to put her in a brawl.”

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