Mormonism w/David Archuleta-PT1: "America's Mormon Idol"
Was I in a Cult?
Liz Iacuzzi
4.5 • 3.5K Ratings
🗓️ 17 February 2026
⏱️ 65 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
David Archuleta was seventeen years old, Mormon to his core, and singing in front of thirty million people on American Idol. America saw the golden boy - the angel voice, the humble smile, the kid who made grown adults cry on national television. What they didn't see was the father who controlled every note, every decision, every version of David he was allowed to be. "I basically was his puppet."
Behind the fame was the sweetest kid grappling with his own sexuality because his church told him who he was allowed to love, and who he wanted to love wasn't on their yes list. David believed that if he just prayed hard enough, God would "fix" the one thing about himself he'd been taught to hate. Spoiler: God had other plans.
Today is Part 1 of his story... it wrecked us in the best way.
Part 2 is available NOW exclusively for PATREON members.
DAVID'S NEW MEMOIR DEVOUT is now available.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The views, information, or opinions expressed by the guest appearing in this episode solely |
| 0:04.4 | belong to the guest and do not represent or reflect the views or positions of the hosts, |
| 0:09.4 | the show, podcast one, this network, or any of their respective affiliates. |
| 0:14.9 | I was on my Christmas tour, and it was like my dad's vision, his dream coming true. It was supposed to honor God and |
| 0:24.3 | Christ the Savior. And we had a stop in San Francisco and there were a couple of men near the |
| 0:32.6 | front of the audience and they had been kind of trying to like talk to me a little bit during the show as well and I could tell that they were that they were gay and |
| 0:42.6 | as I was high-fiving everyone at the end of my show I skipped them in my head I was kind of showing you're not supposed to |
| 0:52.8 | you're not supposed to be gay and you, you know, I don't want to |
| 0:56.2 | show that I support that lifestyle when it goes against what I was told to believe. And I thought |
| 1:04.7 | it would be right of me to not give them high fives. And that moment has haunted me, you know, now years later, |
| 1:14.0 | because after everything that I went through trying to come to terms with my sexuality and eventually |
| 1:21.3 | embracing that part of me, I was just like, I hated myself so much. And I thought that was okay. I thought I was doing the right thing to hate who I was. |
| 1:43.5 | Welcome to was I in a cult. I'm Liz Iyakuzi. |
| 1:47.6 | And over here I'm Tyler Meesam. |
| 1:49.6 | And today, okay, I need to say this on front. |
| 1:52.8 | He sang for me, Tyler, I mean the voice of an angel. |
| 1:58.4 | A real angel. |
| 1:59.6 | I know this. |
| 2:00.4 | I was there. |
| 2:02.0 | I heard it as well. |
| 2:03.4 | It was also a very special interview for me personally. |
| 2:07.1 | We were talking about today's guest, David Archiletta. |
... |
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