Former 'American' Idol Star Calls Arthur Gunn’s Finale Absence as “The Most Epic Story of All Time"

Days after Arthur Gunn addressed his absence on the American Idol season finale, a former contestant is speaking out.

American Idol season 14 runner-up Clark Beckham (not to be confused with Idol winner Chayce Beckham) posted a new YouTube video on Tuesday — with text across the video that reads "The Most Epic American Idol Story of All Time" — to share what he heard went down behind the scenes on Sunday night. While Clark was not at the finale, he claims to have talked with this year's contestant Graham DeFranco on Tuesday night about the event. Graham, of course, is who Idol producers tapped to perform with Grammy-winning singer Sheryl Crow when Arthur dropped out.

According to Clark (via what Graham had told him), Sheryl and Arthur were all ready to perform together hours before the show had started. But five minutes before Arthur was supposed to take the stage with Sheryl, he allegedly "refused" to come out of his trailer. Producers were supposedly at Arthur's trailer door begging him to come out and perform, but he wouldn't budge.

Clark says neither Graham nor anyone else knew the specific reason why Arthur decided to pull out, but producers allegedly had approached Graham days before the finale about possibly stepping in for Arthur in anticipation that he might drop out.

Clark went on to explain that the day of the show, Graham wasn't expecting to have to fill in since Arthur and Sheryl seemed good — but he was wrong. Five minutes before Sheryl and Arthur were scheduled to take the stage, a producer told Graham they needed him. While Graham initially thought producers were tapping him to film a segment for a promotional clip, they pulled him backstage, explained that Arthur was refusing to come out of his trailer and that he would sing with Sheryl. And so, Graham, in midst of "absolute chaos," checked his mic and just like that took the stage with Sheryl. As we all know now, the two ended up crushing their duets of Sheryl's songs "If It Makes You Happy" and "Everyday Is A Winding Road" together.

On social media, Graham basically confirmed that Clark's account was true after reposting a screenshot of his YouTube video to Instagram Stories. On Tuesday, Graham also shared a collage of photos from finale night and alluded to the drama in his caption.

"I’d say the first picture accurately depicts how I’m feeling moments before an unexpected live tv performance. Once it started all I could do was laugh and have a good time," he wrote. "Thank you to @sherylcrow for being so adaptable and warm. You made it such a great experience. And thank you to @americanidol for handling the chaos so professionally and giving me the opportunity to do what I could to help."

Sheryl herself also posted a picture of with Graham and wrote, "Thank you @grahamdefranco for stepping in to sing with me tonite on @americanidol! Had a great time!! ❤️"

On Monday, Arthur broke his silence and shared his own statement on Instagram describing the incident:

Clark concluded his Youtube video explaining that he will be doing a sit-down interview with a few Idol contestants, including Graham, in the days to come.

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