One “American Idol” contestant is turning an unthinkable tragedy into triumph.

South Carolina college student Freddie McClendon, 19, auditioned with the original song “You Never Loved Him,” about his father’s murder. He said he came to “Idol” to show the world that dad Davis McClendon “was something so much bigger than just the true-crime story of the week.”

“He was our dad; he meant the world to us,” Freddie told the judges about dad Davis, a Greenwood, South Carolina-based marketing director at an assisted living facility and retirement community who was killed at age 46 in May 2023.

The estranged husband of Davis’ girlfriend, Meredith Haynie, struck and killed Davis with his Ford F-250 pickup truck before fleeing the scene. In an October trial, after 22 minutes of deliberation, a jury reportedly found “Bud” Ackerman Jr. guilty and a judge sentenced him to 45 years in jail for McClendon’s murder.

The hit-and-run killing was covered by “48 Hours” earlier this month.

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Though he’d been songwriting since he was a high school freshman, it became more than a hobby after his dad’s death; it was a way for him to voice his emotions. In “You Never Loved Him,” Freddie grieves how his family “never got to tell him goodbye” and seems to allude to residual anger he feels about his untimely loss.

His voice was unique and imperfect − perfection wasn’t the point. “You’ve got a really honest approach to this thing. It’s like our little modern-day Paul Simon,” Luke Bryan said. After she wiped her tears away, Carrie Underwood told Freddie: “It’s so brave of you to decide that you want to choose the narrative that you want to remember him (as) him. Not what happened, but him.”

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With his mom on one side and two weeping sisters on the other, the judges had no choice but to say “yes.”

McClendon was one of a dozen singers to advance to the next stage.