Ayoung “American Idol” contestant now proba bly regrets ever telling the judges the story of her father shooting her stepmother before turning the gun on himself.

Her voice – and her tale of woe – won 17-year-old Jamie Lynn Ward of Reidsville, N.C. a golden ticket to Hollywood last week during the “Idol” tryouts in Alabama.

But her family is up in arms – saying that, when they tuned in last week, they had no idea Jamie was going to tell the world what had happened.

“Emotionally, it just about destroyed me,” said Beverly Ward, Jamie’s stepmother who barely survived the shooting, after seeing the show.

“She was on ‘American Idol,'” the stepmother told the local newspaper. “She should have been talking about herself and not dragging this back up.”

The teenager told Paula, Randy and Simon that her father had caught Beverly cheating – “It wasn’t the first time,” she added – and shot her a little more than a year ago.