They Got It Wrong: 9 Celebrities Who Lost On “Star Search”

Tressa Thomas 

I’m including this one because it’s two stars competing against one another. Now, you may not recognize the name Tressa Thomas but if you’ve seen the movie The Five Heartbeats then you may remember she’s the girl who played Robert Townsend’s (Duck’s) baby sister. On the show she competed against Countess Vaughn. If you watched “Moesha” or “The Parkers,” you know that Countess Vaughn can really sing. And she’s been honing that skill for a while. When she was 9 years old, she had a great run on the show. So when Vaughn and Thomas met, Countess came out victorious. And while Vaughn might have been a bit more successful in the long run, Thomas didn’t do too bad herself. She got to sing the song she performed in The Five Heartbeats with the legendary Patti Labelle, she was in the movie Flatliners, Message in a Bottle and the made-for-tv movie The Little Richard Story. Tressa performed for the Royal Caribbean cruise line in 2001 and was invited to sing at the 9-11 memorial service in 2001. In 2007, she produced a short film called “The Yesterday Pool.”