American Idol's Caleb Kennedy speaks out on his controversial exit, admits "I wasn't ready" for national scrutiny

TooFab

Kennedy, who made the Top Five, abruptly left Idol after a resurfaced video showing him hanging out with a friend who was wearing a white hood similar to the ones worn by the Ku Klux Klan emerged online. Caleb apologized and said he would be taking a break from social media. In a new interview with the Spartanburg Herald Journal, the 16-year-old Kennedy says he wasn't ready to be thrust into the national spotlight. "You think it's all going to be fun, and a lot of it is, but it will slap you in the face really quickly," he explained. "I wasn't ready for it."