Top 13 AMERICAN IDOL Contestants to Pay Tribute to Whitney Houston on Next Week's Show

On last night's episode of AMERICAN IDOL, viewer's votes and the Idol judges chose the Top 13 contestants who will remain in the competition. After more than 33 million votes were counted, America chose five guys and five girls to be in the Top 10: Phillip Phillips, Jessica Sanchez, Hollie Cavanagh, Joshua Ledet, Heejun Han, Shannon Magrane, Skylar Laine, Elise Testone, Colton Dixon, and the comeback kid, "gentle giant" Jermaine Jones. The judges then invited six contestants to "sing for their lives" to compete for the three remaining wild card spots: Jen Hirsh, Jeremy Rosado, Brielle Von Hugel, Deandre Brackensick, Erika Van Pelt, and Reed Grimm. Each judge was allowed to make one wild card selection — for Randy, it was Erika; Jennifer chose Jeremy; and Steven picked Deandre, rounding out the Top 13.

It was also revealed that next week, the men will sing Stevie Wonder songs and the ladies will pay tribute to the late music icon, Whitney Houston. All the contestants will be mentored by Mary J. Blige. Blige and Season 10 runner-up Lauren Alaina will also perform on next week's show. The episode will mark the 400th episode of the long-running FOX singing competition.

Following the death of Whitney Houston, Idol host Ryan Seacrest had hinted that the show planned to pay homage to the late singer. "We are trying to figure out how we can go in and obviously pay tribute [to Houston] in some way and acknowledge the impact that she had on popular singers, popular music and young singers that are trying to make it," said the host.

AMERICAN IDOL airs Wednesdays and Thursdays on Fox.