Ex-‘American Idol’ contestant Antonella Barba, arrested charged with dealing heroin

A study says the number of deadly heroin overdoses in the country more than quadrupled from 2010 to 2015. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, there were almost 13,000 overdose deaths involving heroin in 2015, compared to more than 3,000 deaths fatalities five years earlier. The center’s research was based on death certificate data and did not examine whether overdoses were intentional suicides or accidental deaths. Heroin has been becoming more potent and cheaper to buy, which may be causing more people to use it, according to a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Wochit

Antonella Barba, the fresh-faced singer from Point Pleasant who millions watched during her 2007 run on “American Idol,” is locked up in a Virginia jail this morning accused of heroin distribution.

The 31-year-old, now of Los Angeles, was arrested on Thursday. Her arrest was first reported Saturday by TMZ.

The Jersey Shore native made it into the final 16 of the sixth season of American Idol. That year was the show’s second-highest rated during its run on Fox as one of the most successful television programs of all time.

The Norfolk (Virginia) City Jail’s website shows Barba was arrested for selling or intending to sell 100 grams or more of heroin, a charge that carries a minimum of five years in prison and as much as 40, according to Virginia law. She is set to appear before a judge on Monday morning.

Heroin is one of a handful of narcotics — Fentanyl and other semi-legal opioid pain medications included — that has fueled a drug epidemic that kills thousands of Americans every year. The video at the top shows how heroin exploded in the last decade.

Barba sang three songs before she was eliminated from Idol, but rankled some during her time on the show after photographs of her — taken prior to her Idol audition — surfaced showing her in various states of undress, including a shot of Barba in a wet T-shirt in the fountain of the National World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.

After exiting Idol, Barba released the single “Jersey Girl” in 2010 and a pair of Christmas songs in the following years, but never a complete album.

She identifies herself as a singer, violinist and pianist on her Facebook and Instagram pages and notes that she has sung the National Anthem before multiple Dodgers baseball games.

Her official website says “Coming Soon” even though it was created in 2015, the domain registration shows.

Barba’s latest national television appearance was on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” on May 21 when she took part in an all-Idol contestant spoof of 1985’s “We Are the World.”

A message to her management in Los Angeles was not immediately returned.