Lee DeWyze said he was simply responding to his fans when the former "American Idol" winner told them he had not been invited to the finale of the current season.

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The Hollywood Reporter said Saturday that social-media circles were abuzz this week after "Idol" tradition was broken with a seeming snub of DeWyze, who had expected to sing his latest single on the episode that crowned Scotty McCreery the winner of Season 10.

His failure to appear stirred up a storm of Twitter chatter between followers of DeWyze, the winner of Season 9, and executive producer Nigel Lythgoe.

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DeWyze told the Hollywood Reporter there were no sour grapes, but he had been assuming he would perform and had to truthfully break the news to his disappointed fans.

"I was getting messages asking, 'What are you performing on the finale?' so I simply said I wasn't asked to perform, and it kind of took off from there," said DeWyze.

"It came down to the wire and they never asked me to perform, so that was that," DeWyze added. "I (thought), "I'll just go and be a spectator."