The last time Worcester native Jessica Cabral sang in the “American Idol” competition before being eliminated, she sang Faith Hill’s “Breathe.”

“I felt really good,” she says, recalling that performance, but remembers thinking she wished she’d picked a different song than the beautiful country ballad. “I think that I really wished afterward that I had picked a song that was more fun and easier for me to engage with the audience.”

Of course, she didn’t know until she stepped on stage that the audience was going to be almost exclusively teenage girls, and not just the judges or producers. She also realizes that the audience demographic put her at an immediate disadvantage: At 21, she was one of the older competitors, and, as many observers of the show have noted over the years, “you’re at an automatic disadvantage when you’re a woman and not a boy with a guitar.”

In that situation, song choice is key, and if she had her way, she’d have sung “something by Taylor Swift and changed it, but we couldn’t do any of her songs. None of her songs are on the cleared list,” the 20-page list, with probably 50 to 75 songs on each page, of all the songs the competitors are allowed to sing. But while that’s a lot of songs, Cabral says her choices were even more limited: She was given a choice of three songs to sing: “Breathe,” Tori Kelly’s recent pop hit “Hollow,” or Colbie Caillat’s moody self-esteem rumination “Try.”



Cabral says “Hollow” was her first choice, but the producers strongly encouraged her to go with “Breathe,” saying “we think it will be a slam dunk.”



It wasn’t, and Cabral — an early favorite of many Internet fan sites — found herself eliminated just shy of making the Top 24 … and she said she knew it as she was making the final walk down the aisle to receive her fate from the judges.

“Three girls before me got a ‘yes,’ she recalls. “People that got sent home were more prepared … flawless, amazing singers. By the time I was backstage, I was basically sobbing uncontrollably. The three girls before me … I was happy for them, but I knew.”



She said judge Jennifer Lopez saw her and said, “Oh, sweetie” before informing her that there were a lot of amazing artists in the competition, and that she was one of them, but that they couldn’t find a spot for her. It was at that point that judge Harry Connick Jr. made the unorthodox step of interrupting Lopez to add, “I just wanted to let you know that you’re not going home because you’re not a phenomenal singer.”



While she’s upbeat and positive about the experience now, she concedes that, at the time, it was an emotional ordeal. Indeed, she went through pretty much all of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ stages of grief within the space of a few hours.



“The moment from when they told me and I was walking away, to when I was interviewed off-camera,” she says, “I was just really sad that my journey was ending. I thought they let me down because I felt I had stepped up to the plate. By the time I got to the parking lot and was driving home, I was kind of mad. And by the time I got home, I thought, ‘This is OK.' I learned about myself and what I can do and what I can accomplish, and I felt the judges weren’t worried about me … Maybe that’s what they’re looking for, someone who this is their only shot at making their dream come true.”

And Cabral is quite clear she doesn’t believe she’s that person, as evidenced by her launching immediately into a GoFundMe Page to help fund her own album, which at this point she’s certain will be worship-themed, although she’s still deciding whether it will be a congregational album or something more on the artistic side.

And she also has one more pleasure to look forward to: Watching “American Idol.”



“At the end of the day,” she says, “it really is a TV show, and everyone they have on there is great … What they want is ratings. I do feel that they do have a winner in that group of 24” — Olivia Rox — “and if they can keep her, if she wins, I’m happy. I’m off the show and rooting for who I want to win. Now I’m just someone watching, and the cool thing is I know everyone there, and it makes it fun for me.”



But is she done with competitive TV singing competitions? There’s been a hashtag campaign on Twitter — #JCABforwildcard — to bring her back as a wildcard, but although she says she’s flattered by the support, she thinks that would be unlikely. But that’s OK.



“I actually was contacted by ‘The Voice,’" she says, adding that she’s still considering going through the process. “My first audition with them is next Tuesday.”

Email Victor D. Infante at Victor.Infante@Telegram.com and follow him on Twitter @ocvictor.