It’s the shock heard ‘round the world as The X Factor’s Jennel Garcia is eliminated from the competition…

During Thursday’s results show, the 18-year-old half-Puerto Rican singer ended up in the bottom two, despite this week’s well-reviewed performance of Tina Turner’s “Proud Mary.”

Following the elimination of Lyric 145, one of Simon Cowell’s groups, Garcia and her fellow Young Adults competitor Paige Thomas had to sing for the save.

Before the judges cast their vote for which act to send home, Garcia performed an emotional rendition of Hoobastank‘s “The Reason,” while Thomas performed Coldplay‘s “Paradise.”

“I’m shocked that either of them are at the bottom,” said L.A. Reid, before voting to send home Garcia. Britney Spears followed suit. But Cowell refused to name his choice until the ladies’ mentor Lovato made hers.

“The act that I’m going to send home is Paige,” she said. It was up to Cowell to avoid a tie – and he picked Garcia.

“You’re so unbelievably talented and you have a future ahead of you so I’m not worried,” Lovato told Garcia on the show. “I love you and I really, really believe in you.”

After the show, a “bummed” Lovato told People magazine, that it “wasn’t an easy night” for her.

“I genuinely think that Jennel is just more talented,” she explained. “I think that Paige has a more star quality to her which is going to help her as an advantage. I think that Jennel definitely didn’t deserve to go home, and I couldn’t let her go home tonight.”

“As we get closer and closer to the end of this I’ve invested so much time,” she continued, “so it is not like I am losing a contestant; I am also losing a friend that I worked so hard with over the last couple of weeks. It is kind of a blessing and a curse that I get so close to my contestants.”