Amanda Shechtman, the 19-year-old “American Idol” contestant from Roslyn, NY, says she was “devastated” about being booted from the show after Simon Cowell called her a “drama queen” in front of 30 million people.

“Yeah, that was embarrassing,” says Shechtman, a drama student at NYU, who was shown sobbing on the phone with her mother last week after getting a tongue-lashing from Simon.

In fact, the young performer says the hard fall has knocked her back into college — she took a leave of absence to do the show — and even caused her to take a break from acting in favor of academic courses.

Shechtman can’t blame Simon for her group’s disastrous performance of Gwen Stefani’s “The Sweet Escape,” which was featured on last Wednesday’s episode. But she does think the judges were awfully harsh.

“I was the last person to sing in my group,” she said. “Watching them all crash and burn I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ The judges cut me off almost immediately.”

It was also tough to see herself edited down to a few minutes of less-than-flattering footage, Shechtman says.

“Whatever you were at that moment, that’s the side of your personality that’s shown. I’m a very emotional person — that doesn’t always translate well,” she says.

But in spite of her rough treatment on the show, Shechtman would consider trying out again. “Maybe in a few years I could go back,” she says. “It was a lot of pain, a lot of tears. But it helped me grow. And you have to appreciate that you were featured and your name is out there — that’s pretty cool.”