Either way, David Hernandez won’t be strutting his stuff on “American Idol” anymore.

The 24-year-old Arizona native, who reportedly was a stripper before making it onto the singing competition, got the boot on Wednesday night following what judge Simon Cowell called a “corny, verging on desperate” performance of the Beatles’ “I Saw Her Standing There.”

Indeed, Hernandez’ rendition of the tune on Tuesday night’s show seemed more than just a little forced, especially as he danced his way through the mostly female audience. Once you know a guy has stripped for other men, it’s sorta tough to believe he was really digging all those girlie squeals, not to mention singing about a female object of affection.

Still, the quality of Hernandez’s performances all season had been spotty at best, so his demise didn’t come as a major surprise. As Hernandez stood on stage with the other two of the bottom three contestants, Sayesha Mercado and Kristy Lee Cook, Cowell said “America got this absolutely spot on.” For the full “Idol” elimination story, click here.

Tuesday night on “American Idol,” 17-year-old David Archuleta officially lost his place as the singing competition’s frontrunner. Not only did the Utah native forget the lyrics (always a kiss of death on ‘Idol’) to The Beatles’ “We Can Work it Out,” he never recovered from the mistake. Judge Randy Jackson dubbed his uninspired performance “very forced,” while Simon Cowell bluntly called it “a mess.”

To make matters even weirder, Archuleta said in his pre-recorded interview that he had been nervous about having to choose a song from the Lennon/McCartney songbook because he “wasn’t too familiar with the songs.” Seriously.

For Archuleta, the performance was a dramatic about-face. Just two weeks into the competition last month, the Los Angeles Times dubbed Archuleta “the Chosen One” and said “the competition is on the brink of collapsing in the face of a talent who lays waste to all before him.”

Unfortunately for the baby-faced Archuleta, his fall from grace happened to coincide with a downright shocking reversal of fortunes for a 22-year-old Californian contestant who goes by just one name: Chikezie.

The affable Chikezie had been shrugged off by many as a bore, narrowly missing elimination last week. But on Tuesday night he bounced back with a passionate performance of “She’s a Woman” that started with a bluegrass twist and morphed into an all-out rock song. The judges were floored, with Jackson asking “Who knew?” and Cowell saying Chikezie had changed in just a week.

One fan on the ‘Idol’ message boards summed it up best:

“Chikezie was HOTT tonight!”