They go by Samantha Diaz on Instagram, but you probably know them as “Just Sam,” or the American Idol champion from 2020. They captivated audiences with an inspiring audition, where they revealed they performed regularly on the New York City subways.
While COVID made the show go remote in the middle of the season, American Idol continued and Just Sam was crowned the winner…from their own home.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yn00CVhDOp4
After winning Idol, Just Sam – who uses the “they” pronoun – signed a recording contract with Hollywood Records, but eventually left two years later without releasing any albums. They ended up purchasing the music they recorded with Hollywood Records, which left them “broke.”
Since Idol, they released two singles independently: “Africando” and “Change.”
Last week, Just Sam revealed to their followers that they were in the hospital for an undisclosed reason.
“Thank you to everyone that checked on me. I am ALIVE and out of the hospital,” they wrote in an Instagram Story on Wednesday (August 24).
On Friday (August 26), they thanked fans for their prayers and said, “I’m doing much better now.”
While they didn’t say what illness caused them to be hospitalized but gave a little clue with a photo of a scale writing, “100lbs is crazy…I seriously need help.”
According to PEOPLE, they wrote in their Instagram stories, “I need a better hospital bruh…I hate it here tbh.”
While Just Sam seems to be on the mend, we will keep them in our prayers. In a video posted to their Instagram page on August 28, it seems they are back to singing on the subway. See it below.