Brooke White has already dried her tears

Half a day after she cried her eyes out on stage as she was eliminated from "American Idol," Brooke White was feeling a whole lot better.

And a little bit surprised that she sobbed so much when she got the news on Wednesday because being voted off didn't take her by surprise.

"Well, I've been packed for two weeks. ... But after Tuesday night, I was ready. I was re-energized. My spirits were up. I wanted to keep going," White said in a conference call with critics. "And then I woke up Wednesday morning and I knew. It was in my gut — Brooke, you're going home. Weird."

But when the word came officially, she wasn't as prepared as she thought she was. White sobbed uncontrollably, almost unable to get through her final song.

"I thought I was strong. I really did," White said, acknowledging that she had cried "like 50 billion times" either on or off camera during her run on the show. "I felt so grateful and happy and then, boom, it hit me — this is done. This is over. And the finality of that phase of the experience being over was sad. ... It was emotional and I'd hoped so much that I could have been stronger. But I guess I'm just an emotional girl."

The next morning, however, she sounded fully recovered as she answered questions.

"I'm a little tired, but I'm feeling pretty good," said White, an Arizonan with ties to Utah. And she'd just gotten a pick-me-up phone call from one of her idols, Carly Simon.

"She was incredibly supportive, very generous in her comments," White said. "It actually really boosted my spirits. It kind of gave me a motivation and a hope to keep going in the direction that I am."

Even judge Simon Cowell was supportive backstage on Wednesday. He circled back to their conversation when she auditioned for the show last year.

"Actually, he joked with me last night that he thought he might have brought me over to the dark side. And I said, 'Absolutely not,"' White said with a laugh. "No, I've had a lot of support from people to remain the same person that I am."

She and Utahn David Archuleta both noted the fact that they are both Mormon and both made the "American Idol" top five, but they didn't make a big deal out of it.

"You know, it's just part of our lives," White said. "It's been a great part of my life and it's helped me make a lot of decisions. And it brought me a lot of peace, actually, during the competition."

She acknowledged that she struggled with self-confidence throughout her stay on "Idol," however.