Katharine McPhee has joined fellow “American Idol” contestants Taylor Hicks and Ruben Studdard as former members of the Sony BMG family. The artist has parted ways with RCA after a solitary album, a 2007 self-titled affair that debuted at No. 2 on The Billboard 200.

A label source confirmed McPhee’s departure, which was first reported by Entertainment Weekly.

McPhee struggled to connect with a wide audience with her debut, which was led by the single “Over It.” That track topped out at No. 22 on Billboard’s Top 40 Mainstream chart and No. 29 on the Hot 100. The album has sold just 366,000 units in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

As McPhee told Billboard last year, she quickly realized the art of the compromise when it came to record the album, fresh off the road from the “American Idols Live” tour.

McPhee fell particularly in love with two tracks from producer Ryan Leslie, but then they wound up not making the cut. “I’m learning that’s the way it goes in this business,” she said. “You give and you take.”

In contrast to “Idol” stars like Bo Bice and Hicks, who had already spent years pursuing a music career, McPhee’s prior experience was limited to musical theater. Once in album-making mode, she also struggled with putting her own stamp on material that had been submitted by veteran songwriters.

“The demos, it’s so hard once you hear whoever is singing to get that out of your head, especially for me, being new to recording,” she said. Being able to craft songs with outside collaborators like Danja, Babyface and Kara DioGuardi generated “the memory of where we were when we were writing the song. There’s a kind of history behind it.”

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American Idol runner-up Katharine McPhee is engaged to actor Nick Cokas, sources tell PEOPLE.

McPhee, 23, recently has been showing off a ring from Cokas, 42. They have been dating for more than a year.

“Katharine is bubbling over with excitement for her upcoming wedding,” a source says. “She is all smiles when she talks about the planning. It sounds like everything is going very smoothly.”

The couple met in 2005 when they performed in a Los Angeles theater production of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. Their union began as a friendship, McPhee told PEOPLE last year.

“He took me up to my San Francisco (Idol) audition,” McPhee said. That’s when their relationship blossomed. “We totally fell in love,” she said.

As for the 19-year age difference, McPhee says that “was never really a concern.” The two connect because “he just makes things really fun” and “we love business. We love going to meetings together and create things together.”

Case in point: the two will join forces on an upcoming independent film titled The Last Caller. McPhee will star in the dark romantic comedy and Cokas will produce.

McPhee, whose debut CD came out earlier this year, is currently filming the Anna Faris comedy I Know What Boys Like.

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According to OK Magazine, American Idol runner-up Katharine McPhee has gotten engaged to her longtime boyfriend Nick Cokas, 42.

Her longtime boyfriend, Nick Cokas, proposed to the 23-year-old recently, but friends insist it wasn’t a big surprise. An insider tells American magazine OK!, “They’ve been talking about it (marriage) for some time.”

Best of luck to Katharine and Nick! I’ll be waiting impatiently for I Know What Boys Like and her new album–which according to her is going to be John Mayer-esque.

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Here she is at the Third Annual Walker Pink Party in Santa Monica, September 8.