Season 23 of American Idol continued the audition phase on Sunday night as judges Carrie Underwood, Lionel Richie, and Luke Bryan traveled to New York, Los Angeles, and Nashville to find music’s next superstar. The two-hour episode aired Sunday, March 23 (8 p.m. ET/PT) with Ryan Seacrest hosting.

The night’s most memorable moment belonged to Freddie McClendon, the 19-year-old son of Davis McClendon, a 46-year-old father of three who was murdered in 2023. “One of my favorite memories — I was around 15 years old and my dad took me to Nashville for the first time,” Freddie said prior to his audition. “Seeing Music City and Broadway — he said, ‘You know Freddie, that’s gonna be you one day.’ It’s happening today!”

“I’ve been writing music since I was a freshman in high school,” he told the judges. “I really started doing it seriously about a year ago when my dad passed away. My dad was killed about a year ago in 2023. It became a national and statewide news story. Everyone was focusing on his death and I wanted to tell the story of his life.”

“May 7, 2023, my mom woke me [and my sister] up and told us our dad had been killed,” he explained in a video package. “We found out later that someone killed him. My dad and I had a great relationship. He was an absolutely wonderful person. He would do anything for anybody. We used to talk about everything and he really understood me.” Freddie’s mother added, “Freddie lost his best friend. How do you get those feelings out? He turned to writing songs.”

“I miss him every day,” Freddie continued. “While you’re already dealing with his death, you’ve got to deal with all of these people talking about the person that he was when they didn’t know him like we did. He was something so much bigger than just the true crime story of the week. He was our dad and he meant the world to us.”

For his audition, Freddie sang an original song titled “You Never Loved Him” based on his father’s life. Carrie wiped away tears as she commented, “Thank you for bringing that and sharing your heart. It’s so brave of you to decide that you want to choose the narrative. You want to remember not what happened, but him. Apart from that, your voice — there’s something super cool and throwback about it.” Luke then compared Freddie to a modern-day Paul Simon and Lionel praised the youngster’s ability to “move people.” And with that, Freddie earned a golden ticket to Hollywood.