Metro

‘Idol’ castoff Pia Toscano boots beau for ‘Dancing’ dreamboat

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It’s another shocking elimination.

“American Idol” castoff Pia Toscano, 22, is saying ciao to her longtime boyfriend, Queens caterer Carlos Nunez, while swooning over “Dancing With the Stars” salsa shaker Mark Ballas, a friend told The Post.

“It seems inevitable to anyone with eyes,” the couple’s mutual pal said.

The Howard Beach heartbreaker hasn’t officially booted her beau of four years, but she’s tapered off her talks with the 28-year-old from Ozone Park while she lives la vida loca in Hollywood.

“They hadn’t spoken as often as you’d think once she made the final 12,” the source told The Post. “She kind of played a disappearing act.”

The head-over-heels Nunez donned a “Team Pia” T-shirt and gushed about his sweet-voiced squeeze the night “Idol” voters surprisingly dumped her on April 7. He even comforted her weeping family at the Roma View catering hall he manages in Howard Beach as they watched the telecast.

But the very next day, Toscano appeared to abandon her supportive soulmate for puppy love in La La Land — reportedly caught smooching with Ballas at the restaurant Gulfstream.

She met the dashing dancer — whose show tapes in the same studio — by passing her digits along to him through pro wrestler Chris Jericho, a “Dancing With The Stars” contestant, reports said.

After a brief visit to New York City last week, she zipped right back to Hollywood where she dined Thursday with Ballas at Asia de Cuba in the Mondrian Hotel.

But things were already amiss in March, when Nunez flew out to the West Coast to cheer Toscano’s first television performance — he proudly watched her rehearse for that moment for years — but she could only find “a couple hours” to spend with him, the source said.

The hometown sweethearts met four years ago through mutual friends, and popped up as a couple one night at a boozy house party in Old Howard Beach, the source said.

Even before making the big time, Toscano cultivated a wholesome image, shyly refusing to kiss in public or even get snapped in a photo playing beer pong, the source said.

“She used to jump out of pictures and not be seen around certain people doing certain things because ‘When I’m famous’ . . . ” the source said.

Those wallflower ways didn’t always go over well with the fun-loving Nunez and caused the pair to split up a few times, the pal said.

But Nunez was convinced they had a future, and as recently as three months ago “they were at a house party drinking beer out of red cups,” the source said. He even told The Post two weeks ago that fame wouldn’t change his flame.

“I’m confident,” he said. “We’ve been together for a long time. We have a strong foundation. If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.”

Now, while the coy chanteuse continues to describe Ballas as no more than a “a good friend,” Nunez is singing the blues.

Asked by The Post to talk about the break-up, a downcast Nunez replied, “There’s no point.”

The caterer, who once “had the upper hand in the relationship,” doesn’t know how to salvage his romance, a pal said.

“Do you man up and put your foot down? Or do you sit back and hope she does really love and want you?”

cgiove@nypost.com