Lauren Speaks: "I couldn’t pick a better person to finish second to"

The conference call with Lauren today was a little bit strange…

First of all, she got disconnected before the second question. And when they finally came back, somebody (I’m not sure if it was Lauren.) could be heard saying, “Did you hang up on me?” And someone in the room was talking to Lauren through a lot of the call.

Add to that the fact that Lauren had very little to say about anything. And at times she seemed almost irritated by the questions—especially the one she had to know would get asked. But by the end, she had really started to come around and be the girl we had seen on TV…

So are she and Scotty a couple? “No we’re not. We’re just friends.” That was her answer in its entirety. And because reporters were only allowed one question, that’s all we got.

Here is some more of what Lauren had to say…

On dealing with her voice problems: “The show must go on always. The doctor took good care of me. I had to do the best that I could.”

On why she loves country music: “I was raised on country music. It’s in my heart.”

On why she doesn’t use her real last name of Suddeth: “I knew Ryan would have trouble pronouncing it.”

On whether she’ll keep trying to lose weight (She’s lost 16 pounds.): “During the tour I’m going to work out. I’m going to be at the point where I want to be and not where everyone else wants me to be.”

Is she already getting pressure about her weight?...

On whether she wishes she would have waited a few years before trying out for “Idol”: “No. I feel like people misjudge young people because they think they’re not ready. If they have a dream they should go for it.”

On going to the CMA Fan Fest in Nashville: “I believe I’ll be there. It’s gonna be amazing.”

On her confidence level during the season: “I feel like before the show I had a lot of confidence. But seeing myself on TV, it threw me back a couple notches. That was a good thing. It was really helpful to grow as a person and an artist. Each week I learned something new and I put it all together and tried to make the best of it.”

On something we don’t know about her: “I’m not really a blonde. People call me a dumb blonde. I’m actually really smart. I really love to go to school. I’m really good at math.”

On what Scotty whispered to her at the end of Tuesday night’s show: “He told me I was going to win and I said you’re going to win.”

On what was going through her head before Ryan read the results: “I felt like it was going to be Scotty. Everything happens for a reason. God has a different plan for me.”

On finishing second: “There’s hundreds of thousands of people who would like to be number two on ‘Idol’ so I’m fortunate to have made it.”

On her favorite guest last night: “Being able to sing with Carrie Underwood kind of set off the whole night.”

On whether she’s happy for Scotty: “I will be happy for Scotty forever. I’ve been saying all along if it came down to me and Scotty, I’d be happy either way because we’re such great friends. I couldn’t pick a better person to finish second to.”

On her role model, Carrie Underwood: “I could tell when she was talking with me, she genuinely cared I was there. It was amazing to see that someone I had looked up to for so long was exactly how I thought they were. I want to do the same thing and show people I’m not fake…I can be serious too. I cry a lot…I wanna stay true to who I am…I want to let it be available to little girls to look up to me. It would be such a great feeling for a little girl to look up to me like I look up to Carrie.”

A reminder that Lauren will appear tonight (Thursday) on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” which airs at 11:35 on NBC…

Photo Credit: Michael Becker/FOX