Kris Allen, American Idol Season 8 Winner

The eighth season of American Idol premiered on January 13, 2009 and concluded on May 20, 2009. Judges Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul, and Randy Jackson continued to judge the show's contestants, along with Ryan Seacrest as host. The season introduced Kara DioGuardi as the fourth judge on the Idol panel.

Kristopher Neil Allen known as Kris Allen, is an American singer-songwriter from Conway, Arkansas and the winner of the eighth season of the reality television series American Idol.

Kris Allen was announced the winner of the competition on May 20, 2009, defeating runner-up Adam Lambert after nearly 100 million votes, the highest recorded vote total in the show's history.

The eighth season saw numerous changes to the format of the show. There were 36 semi-finalists instead of 24, and thirteen finalists instead of twelve, as, after nine contestants were voted into the finals and three wild card contestants had been advanced, the judges decided to advance a fourth wild card contestant, Anoop Desai. Another addition was the "save", which was used on the top 7 results show to veto Matt Giraud's elimination.