Kristy Lee Cook exits Idol

Kristy Lee Cook, Syesha Mercado and Brooke White were on the chopping block Wednesday evening as American Idol whittled itself down to six contestants.

After Ryan Seacrest announced Mercado was safe, he asked the judges who they thought would be the one to leave. Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul offered their usual platitudes, while Simon Cowell said he believed it was Cook's time to go.

"I made it past the top 10," the Oregon cowgirl said before Seacrest confirmed that Cook was, indeed, the bottom vote-getter.

Cook later said she had hoped to make the top five. "I was kind of upset that I went home because I thought I was getting stronger and stronger," she added. "I thought [Mariah Carey's "Forever"] was my best performance so far. I thought I had at least another week in me."

But everything's not downhill for Cook. Amidst all of the Idol mayhem, she had been keeping a secret from the fans - her boyfriend, Andy, had proposed to her in her Idol apartment's sauna on March 15. Andy dropped to his knee and re-proposed on the Idol stage Wednesday, something he didn't do the first time around. "He owed it to me," Cook said of the second proposal.

"The first time we tried to keep everything on the down-low," she said about her decision not to announce the initial engagement. Although a date has not been set, Cook said June 2009 is a possible wedding date and all the judges would be invited.