Reality Show Star Cheers on 'Idol' She Met as a Baby in Hamilton

When Angela Miller advanced out of the Hollywood Round on Thursday night’s American Idol, looking on in the audience was another woman who knows how to win a reality TV show – Kristina Kuzmic.

Kuzmic is a Hamilton-Wenham Regional High School graduate who won her own cooking show on Oprah Winfrey’s OWN network in 2011.

Kuzmic “met” Miller after Kuzmic tacked posters up around the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary as a 15-year-old Regional student, advertising her babysitting services.

Miller’s parents, Guy and Tama, responded. They lived on campus with their young son Jonathan and Tana was pregnant with Angela.

“I think I was her first babysitter,” Kuzmic said.

The Millers moved away from the North Shore for a while and Kuzmic went off to college in California. Then a few years ago Kuzmic reunited with the Millers through Facebook – first with Tama and then the rest of the family.

"I love that family," Kuzmic said.

It was a few years ago that Kuzmic posted a message on Miller’s Facebook wall: “When are you going to do a reality show and win?”

Miller waited until she graduated from Beverly High School last June and began her pursuit of a reality show win on American Idol.

And little did Kuzmic know that an invitation to connect if the Millers were ever in California – where Kuzmic still lives – would end up with a seat in the audience of American Idol. As Miller played her own song from behind the piano on the episode that aired on Thursday night, Kuzmic was in the audience. The show was taped in December.

“That was really neat to be there in person,” she said.

And if Miller advances, Kuzmic said she plans to attend the live shows with “a big, obnoxious poster” urging viewers to vote for Miller.

Kuzmic says Miller comes from “an amazing family.”

“You always want good things to happen to people like that,” Kuzmic said, later adding: “She’s going to win this, I’m calling it.”