Early in his career, Justin Guarini appeared to have everything he could want: fame, wealth and a bright future in Hollywood.
After finishing as the runner-up on the inaugural season of “American Idol” in 2002, Guarini became famous almost overnight. But when his Hollywood ambitions unraveled, he entered a dark period that he would eventually recognize as one of the greatest gifts of his life.
“I think it was one of the greatest things that could ever have happened to me,” Guarini, who recently published “Center Stage Confidence: How to Own Your Story and Command Any Room,” told Fox News Digital.
“Failure is the greatest teacher, one of the greatest teachers that we can have in any given situation because in that failure, you have one of two paths. You either give up or you keep going.”
Still, Guarini said it took time for that perspective to take hold.
In his book, he described the moment he discovered that RCA had dropped him from its roster in 2003.
“I stared at the TV in shock as my entire world came crumbling down around my ears,” Guarini, who said he learned the news during a “Weekend Update” segment on “Saturday Night Live,” wrote. “Every illusion of fame, fortune, and glory fell away in an instant — only to be replaced by the silence of loss. In that moment, the veil of my arrogance, my assumptions, and my entitlement were lifted away, and I saw my life for what it had become.”
“I spent months playing my sad story on repeat,” he continued. “I lost weight, slept more and more, and became less and less like myself, and the people who loved me started to notice and worry. I was living the ghost of the life I had always dreamed of and burning money and time in equal and absurd measure.”
As the first runner-up in “American Idol” history, Guarini had assumed his place in the entertainment industry was secure. Sustaining that early success, however, proved far more difficult than he expected.
In 2003, he released his self-titled debut album and starred opposite Kelly Clarkson in the musical romantic comedy “From Justin to Kelly.” Although the album reached the top 20 on the Billboard 200, the film flopped, and Guarini continued to face criticism over both his performance and his appearance.
As his career lost momentum, Guarini struggled to accept that his reality no longer matched the future he had imagined.
“There have been plenty of people who’ve given up and failed and found other things,” Guarini told Fox News Digital. “That’s really wonderful. But for me, that dark place of not wanting to get out of bed, not wanting to look at myself in the mirror, not wanting to go out and see anything, it just was a period of isolation. And it’s very easy to do when you live behind a gate in an exclusive community.”
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With time, Guarini began to see his circumstances differently.
“I realized that there were still people celebrating me,” he said. “I realized there was still something worth celebrating in my life. And it wasn’t the vanity metrics of how many people voted for me or how many followers I would end up having or the amount of money I could make or blah, blah. It was just doing something and going back to something that I really truly loved.”
For Guarini, that meant stepping back onto the stage.
“For me, that came in the form of just going back out and getting on the stage and singing for people. And I would do it at everything from gala events to state fairs to wherever.”
Those modest performances eventually opened the door to the next phase of his career.
After independently releasing a second album in 2005, Guarini began finding work in television before making his Broadway debut in “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” in 2010.
He later appeared in Broadway productions including “American Idiot,” “Romeo and Juliet” and “Wicked.” In 2015, he revealed another dimension of his talents by taking on the role of Lil’ Sweet, the flamboyant character featured in Diet Dr Pepper commercials.
Looking back, Guarini believes that accepting failure instead of avoiding it ultimately led him to opportunities he might never have encountered if his early fame had continued uninterrupted.
“So there was a cascading effect. So the bottom line was being willing to sit in that place of failure, of discontent, darkness, but continue to go and continue to just say, ‘Okay, how can I continue to move through this space of discomfort, learn about myself and keep going?’ And ultimately, that led to a massive amount of growth that I don’t think would have happened had I just, you know, stayed famous.”
Nearly 25 years after his “American Idol” debut, Guarini said his triumphs and setbacks have reinforced one essential lesson: keep going.
“And so, for me, it has been almost 25 years now of some awesome ups and downs, and every single time I go up and down and up and down, it’s just a consistency again of staying in the game,” he said.
“And so, finally, just staying in the game… because it doesn’t matter if it’s the media, it doesn’t matter if it’s entertainment, doesn’t matter if it’s business. This life in this world is cyclical and if you stay in the game, and you do good work, and you’re kind to people, the opportunity always comes back around to you, and you’ll be more prepared to take advantage of it when it does,” he added.