Episode 18 of The X Factor (USA) aired last evening and instead of only one act being eliminated from the show, two contestants were sent home! The act with the lowest votes was immediately cut from the show and the other two artists with the next lowest number of votes then had to compete as usual to impress the judges.

Unfortunately for Paula Abdul, her final remaining act, Lakoda Rayne, scored the lowest number votes and they were sent home. This means that Abdul will spend the rest of her time on the series judging the contestants of her peers as she all of her acts were eliminated from the show. There is no shame in that, though, because the groups were admittedly the toughest category to handle with a glaringly limited pool of talent from which to pick.

Next up to face elimination were LeRoy Bell and Marcus Canty. Both acts had to perform for the judges and LeRoy surprisingly outsang his young counterpart in every way imaginable.

Marcus was all over the place during his rendition fo Christina Aguilera’s “You Lost Me” and basically did more screaming than actually singing. Yet, he was the obvious choice to remain on the show because he is definitely more marketable. Besides, LeRoy is 59 years old after all.

Here’s a list of the remaining acts:

The Girls (Mentored by Simon Cowell)

Drew
Rachel Crow
Melanie Amaro

The Boys (Mentored by L.A. Reid)

Astro
Marcus Canty
Chris Rene

The Groups (Mentored by Paula Abdul)

All acts eliminated

The Over 30s (Mentored by Nicole Scherzinger)

Josh Krajcik

Watch the full episode on The Lava Lizard.

- Trent