Some ousted season 8 American Idol top 36 semi-finalists–including Felicia Barton, Kendall Beard, and Ju’Not Joyner–participated in an online chat with the Idol website AI Now today. And during his frank online conversation with fans, Ju’Not came right out and said that the TV talent show is in fact rigged, and that its contracts are unfair to contestants.

“It’s a fixed thing if I ever saw one,” he boldly declared–much to the shock of many naive chatters, who responded with capslocked interjections and frowny-faced emoticons.

It was hardly the first time that AmIdol had been accused of wrongdoing. A book loosely based on anonymous former Idol employees’ experiences with the show, Stage 46, made similar allegations last year. But few detractors have ever been as brutally honest as Ju’Not was today.

Ju’Not–who by his own account was labeled a “troublemaker” by Idol producers for questioning the contract (which he dubbed a “slavetract”) that all auditioners are required by Fox/19 to sign, and was allegedly told by Idol bigwig Ken Warwick, “You’re not going to ruin my show”–explained that he wanted to set the record straight today. He stated that he wanted to reveal “truth of Idol” because “Idol ain’t all it is cracked up to be…It’s certainly not the fairytale most think it is.”

Ju’Not claimed he was cut from the competition, and not invited back for the Wild Card round (a shock to many viewers wowed by his memorable “Hey There Delilah” performance) because of his concerns regarding the fairness of the Idol contract.