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"Erika Van Pelt has confessed that she felt &amp;quot;shafted&amp;quot; by her American Idol experience.  The 26-year-old Rhode Island native was eliminated from the Fox singing competition last week, with judges Jennifer Lopez, Randy Jackson and Steven Tyler choosing not to use their one save of the season on her.    Van Pelt has since revealed that she was surprised by the result, as she felt that her talent warranted her a place in further stages of the show and was disappointed with the panellists for not keeping her around.  &amp;quot;I definitely felt a little shafted by their decision not to save me. It&amp;#039;s one of those things that, in hindsight, I&amp;#039;m looking at it like they didn&amp;#039;t want to use their save this early,&amp;quot; she explained to People. &amp;quot;I was not expecting to be the first of the top ten to go home - certainly. I&amp;#039;m not sure they were expecting it either. But I feel like even if they felt like I didn&amp;#039;t deserve to go home, they just didn&amp;#039;t want to waste that save in case America decided to do something really crazy.&amp;quot;  It was announced on Monday that Stevie Nicks will mentor the remaining Top 9 singers for this week&amp;#039;s idol theme.  &amp;gt; American Idol Erika Van Pelt talks Jennifer Lopez, summer tour Watch Erika Van Pelt perform Billy Joel&amp;#039;s &amp;#039;New York State of Mind&amp;#039; below:       "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/american-idol/news/a373726/american-idol-erika-van-pelt-i-felt-shafted-by-the-judges/>