“American Idol” has a history of picking the most likable, friendly and perky contestants as its winners (flashback: Kris Allen and his wife own matching aprons). Go ahead, we dare you to pick a winner that’s done something objectionable. As further proof to our theory, in a recent interview season four winner Carrie Underwood gushed about her love for the show, saying, “I will always have the biggest love for the show as a participant and as a fan.”
She also admitted that she, like the rest of America, still votes for her favorite singers. “It’s so crazy for me to watch and think I was on it,” Underwood said in a conference call with press. “I love the people working on it and I love to go back and talk to the contestants. I vote too, just like everybody else! It’s great being able to see both sides.”
Underwood’s humility and down-to-earth attitude is pretty cool, especially considering she just became Idol’s the biggest-selling winner, surpassing Kelly Clarkson this week with over 10.5 million albums sold. [Photo: GettyImages]
As we watched the VH1 Divas show broadcast from the Brooklyn Academy of Music and caught a whiff of the fact that Ms. Liza Minelli was in the audience, we almost peed our pants with excitement. While some of us from VH1 were live-blogging from the show, others were watching from our homes in Brooklyn, a mere mile from Liza, one of our heroes — she was so close! Oh, and what’s that? Liza is actually going to appear onstage? With Paula Abdul? And accept Paula’s shoes as an award?! Yes, please. This delightful bit of crazytown had us on the edge of our seat — both Paula and Liza (”with a Z”) are seasoned performers but both have a dash of “the meds make me forget things” that made us worry they were veering off script. They saved it though in the end and we found Liza thrilling as always…even if she didn’t sing for us.
Hold up there, Katharine McPhee, what have you done to yourself?? (Yes, that really is Katharine McPhee, we could barely recognize her.) The American Idol singer, known for her gorgeous long brown locks has done something rash and cut them all off - we haven’t felt this way about a hair hacking since Felicity and we don’t like it one bit. McPhee was on hand at Macy’s in New York City to make an appearance, but we think she and her new hair will be showing up more often these days since she has an upcoming album scheduled for a January 2010 release. [Photo: Splash News Online]
Kara DioGuardi, Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul have all offered up their opinions now that it’s confirmed that Ellen Degeneres is the new “American Idol” judge, and their verdict is nothing but love. DioGuardi for one, is excited that she will no longer be the newest member of the team (”I got slagged,” she said of her critical reviews last season), but also had this to say about her new co-worker: “She’s somebody who loves music, she’s positive, she loves kids…She is somebody who has watched the show from the beginning, knows everything there is to know about American Idol and I think ultimately it’s going to be a great new energy.”
Randy also said that Ellen’s point of view will be refreshing for viewers to hear. “There’s so much music industry insider talk with me and Simon and Kara that I didn’t think we needed any more of that. Ellen hit it right on the head—I think she could be the voice of the people,” Jackson told E Online. “It’s like somebody in the home audience watching and going, ‘What would I say?’ Ellen’s going to be saying it.”
Last but not least, Paula Abdul, the one everyone’s been waiting to hear from, also made a statement, in which she called Degeneres, “wildly funny and talented in her own right. I wish her and the show only the best of luck.” Sounds like there’s no hard feelings - what we’d really love though is for Ellen to have Paula on her show to discuss it all - we’d watch! [Photo: GettyImages]
When we woke up today, we greeted the rising sun with a wink and a smile, little birdies dressed us, and tiny mice scampered to tie our shoelaces. The reason for such a fairy tale morning? Why, we heard Ellen Degeneres was going to be the new judge on “American Idol.” Now, obviously Ellen is noPaula Abdul. She doesn’t have the music background that Paula has and she certainly doesn’t have the, er, quirks, that mada Paula so fun to watch, but man, we love us some Ellen.
Degeneres is no stranger to judging shows like this one either - she had a brief stint as a guest judge on “So You Think You Can Dance” earlier this summer (and if there’s on thing Ellen does know, it’s dancing. Well, dancing and sensible blazers.) In a statement about the new job on Idol, Ellen said. “I’ve watched since the beginning, and I’ve always been a huge fan. So getting this job is a dream come true, and think of all the money I’ll save from not having to text in my vote.”
While Ellen is certainly not going to bring a severe point of view such as Simon Cowell’s to the show, she probably won’t be as condescending and irritating as one Ms. Kara DioGuardi either, and we expect a lot more humor, which we look forward to. Of course this means we’ll have to revamp our Idol drinking game, but we welcome that challenge. And just in case you’re a fan of her talk show, don’t worry - like Kelly Ripa before her, she will be working a day and a night gig and has no plans to leave the talk show. [Photo: GettyImages]
American Idol judge Kara DioGuardi was responsible for penning the universally loathed season 8 finale song “No Boundaries.” We’ve spent countless hours thinking about how bad this song was, and we clearly weren’t alone — even Kris Allen opted to cut it from his set list during the Idol Summer Tour. Seems like Kara isn’t willing to let us forget the craptastic ballad though, she has re-recorded it on her own and released it on YouTube so America will have yet another version to deal with.
To be fair, her version sounds better than either Kris Allen or Adam Lambert’s renditions. However, let’s face it, it’s still a pretty sucky song. What say you, does her rendition give the song the respect it deserves, or is it superfluous and pointless to release this three months after the fact? [Photo: Getty Images]
With the news that Paula Abdul wouldn’t be returning to “American Idol” next season, the producers started scrambling immediately to find replacements to fill her always unpredictable (and available on QVC) shoes. Though they often have guest mentors, the show has never seen such a roster of guest judges like the one they’re pulling together for the 2010 season.
After Abdul announced her departure, Victoria “Posh Spice” Beckham was asked to join the judges for one episode (maybe more), and in the past week, the list of guests has grown. Adam Lambert-o-phile Katy Perry will appear on the show, as will Shania Twain, Mary J. Blige, Joe Jonas and Kelly Clarkson. Radar Onlineis also reporting that Faith Hill is in talks to join Simon Cowell and Co. Personally, we think Paula should feel kind of honored that the show needs to book so many celebs to make up for her departure.
The real question is, will this rotating roster of famous faces at the judges’ table equal one Paula? We think not - it’s hard to instantly create chemistry (both good and bad) with a temporary guest - but we’ll have to wait and see. [Photo: GettyImages]
Cipriani’s in downtown Manhattan is not the setting for bar brawls and such, it is what you’d call a classy venue. On Wednesday night, however, Constantine Maroulis got into a fist fight with another party-goer there, over a comment made about Paula Abdul leaving American Idol. Seriously.
Maroulis was just sitting there talking about the show that made him famous, when he expressed his desire to see Paula return to the show. All of a sudden and from out of nowhere, “Some drunk dude tackled me in the middle of the concert and jumped on me,” he Tweeted. Said another source, “It was hilarious! Constantine got into it with this guy who was probably 6 inches shorter and 60 pounds lighter. The guy body-slammed him and punched him in the face and then just stood up, straightened his tie, and said, ‘Bitch, don’t you ever,’ before walking away.”
One of these days we’re going to get our Fly On The Wall machine working just to see a man in a suit say, “Bitch, don’t you ever.” [Photo: GettyImages]
We have this internal struggle going, ’cause for six months this year, we were so anti-Adam Lambert it was all we could think about. We imagined that his voice was like a special sound that would somehow trigger the release of hell-demons, that’s how much we didn’t want him to win American Idol. The screeching, oh, how it makes us shiver! And yet, when it comes to Lambert as a person, we want to be friends with him in a bad way; he’s hilarious and he gives a great interview. Just yesterday, Lambert rebuffed a tabloid rumor that he went off on a fan for smudging his nail polish, saying, “That never happened. Oh my god, I love it! I love how they always go with a ‘very reliable source,’ ‘a close friend of Adam.’ I’m like, ‘Who?’”
As if the rumor wasn’t ridiculous enough on it’s own, Lambert goes on to explain his mani routine to further prove his point. “What’s really funny is, if I indeed painted my nails that day, it wouldn’t have been at the time when we meet and greet fans.” Like, no duh! Everyone knows you don’t paint nails before the meet and greet. It really is too bad we don’t like his voice, because we love everything else about Glambert. [Photo: GettyImages]
Take a good look at Paula Abdul sitting at that judges’ table, because she won’t be returning to it for season 9 of American Idol. After weeks of contract disputes, Abdul finally confirmed our biggest fear last night on her Twitter, thus giving Kara DioGuardi way more screen time than we see fit.
Paula wrote (tearfully, we assume): “With sadness in my heart, I’ve decided not to return to Idol. I’ll miss nurturing all the new talent, but most of all I’ll miss nurturing all the new talent, but most of all being a part of a show that I helped from day 1 become an international phenomenon. What I want to say most, is how much I appreciate the undying support and enormous love that you have showered upon me It truly has been breathtaking, especially over the past month I do without any doubt have the BEST fans in the entire world and I love you all.”
Honestly, we will miss Paula more than we care to admit, and not just because it means more Kara (we’d blame her for everything if we could) - Paula’s rapport withSimon Cowell and Randy Jackson was sweet and unpredictable even while being contentious, and was reason enough to watch the show. We will miss her glitter makeup and high necklines, her nonsensical, free-form poetic critiques, the palm clapping, the forgetfulness, the mustache Simon drew on her face last season, but most of all, we will miss not being able to reference MC Skat Kat in any of our future Idol recaps. ‘Tis a sad day indeed. [Photo: GettyImages]
