Check out Paula Abdul’s big-time excuse making on this morning’s Ryan Seacrest show. You can read a transcript of her interview at Entertainment Weekly.She claims that she and the judges only found out about the show setup–that the critiques would wait until after the second round–when Ryan announced it at the top of the show. Geez, the judges should start reading my blog. I knew it at 6:30 ET. Our weekly rehearsal reporter, Caffiend, told me on the phone after she left the CBS studios. I posted that bit of info on the blog. Meanwhile, Paula claims she was in the studio with her family for part of the dress rehearsal.
She also keeps insisting that she mixed up Jason’s Castro’s review with David Cook’s, and that she read “second song” off her notes due to the confusion caused when head of Reality Programming, Mike Darnell, supposedly ordered Nigel Lythgoe, at the last minute, to march the contestants out on stage for an impromptu post-first round critique.
More After the Jump…
Hey, I can understand Paula getting discombobulated and screwing up. But, why can’t she just say “I wrote a bunch of notes during the dress rehearsal and wasn’t paying attention when I was reading them off?”
More importantly, Why can’t Paula just say, “My apologies to Jason Castro for possibly throwing him off his game by mistakenly critiquing his performance based on what I heard at dress rehearsal?” Because really, while Paula and TPTB try to cover their asses, they are completely glossing over the fact that at the center of this controversy is a contestant who was just royally screwed over.
Until she apologizes, I don’t want to hear anything else.
Do it tonight, Paula. Apologize.
Bonus: Debra Byrd is psychic too! She was also interviewed by Ryan (the crew worked damage control hard) this morning, and thinks Jason will be relieved if he’s eliminated tonight.
Paula dissembles more on Entertainment Tonight.
Forget what we think about someone’s rendition of a song because we all have different tastes. Jason has a lot of fans.
I just bought Jason’s studio version of Forever in Blue Jeans.
It’s excellent!
bethanysuzanne
Apr 30th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
NOLA I actually really liked Scott Savol, but you are probably right, to a degree, haha.
Just between you and I, I thought Scott Savol gave some fabulous performances.
Damn the drama. If Jason’s voice came from Scott Savol’s body,
nobody would give a rats ass.
Like I have said before I love Jasons voice, his tone, his way of singing and pulling emotion from me. I am a mother of three and am not panting over his body, eeewww that would be like incest. Jason just happens to have it all and is lucky and if he is gone tonight I have no fear we will be hearing great things from him. If you like Marilyn Manson you probably won’t connect with this type of singer
Paula is coming up now on Fox News Channel.
My itunes only has it as a pre-order and it won’t let me order it. It says this item no longer available.
Yeah, me too! I really loved the Hall and Oats, she’s gone! and the Brian Mcknight, One more cry……..but that’s so off subject, so i’ll stop:)
On O’Reilly?
To download the singles: click the Idol Gives Back banner on iTunes home, then click All Idol Songs (or whatever) on the right hand side. It takes you to the Idol page, but the songs are all there and available for purchase. At least, that’s how I bought mine 45 minutes ago.
And even if you wouldn’t touch MM with a 10-foot pole, Castro might not be your cup of tea.
Funny that I loved Daughtry but David Cook does nothing for me. Music is so subjective: you never know exactly what the “it” is that will make you swoon over someone.
While I’m SURE this is true for some….I will not jump on the I want Jason bandwagon. Not a fan of Dreds on my man, although they suit Jason, and I don’t find him attractive. Cute, yes, attractive no. He’s more endearing to me than anything, but I’m also too old for him.
Secondly, I am also a fan of voices. I’m not 14 anymore, so I’ve long given up teen idol fandom and started liking music for the sake of it sounding good.
Although I won’t DENY that is some of Jason’s appeal…after all I was a teen girl once too and my musical tastes were questionable, but if he was hot, did it matter what came out of his mouth?
I got my FIBJ and it’s velvet. His voice is so soothing AND very sensual! Love it.
NOLA, I totally agree with you. I don’t even think you’d have to give him a different body. If he hadn’t had the dreadlocks, I doubt a good many of his fans would have evr been fans. His image has definitely played a role in getting him this far.
I just don’t see that Jason was all that bothered by what Paula said. This is the guy that doesn’t get embarrassed by anything he’s done. He just does his thing and if you like it, you like it. He doesn’t appear to have ever taken the judges criticism and changed anything he does. That’s fine but you have to take the lumps. He didn’t give an inspired performance with either song last night although probably not as bad as the judges said.
Obviously Paula was in the wrong and should apologise but I still don’t get why someone didn’t stop her.
I think Jason should have gone home last week but he does have a decent size fanbase. I don’t think what happened last night will cost him votes and may have gotten some pity votes. I don’t know if that’s a good reason to keep him there but Brooke could also go quite fairly.
I think Paula’s excuse about not knowing about the speed judge round, is a cover for her confusion, but not a cover for the show itself.
She is saying she didn’t know because she has to come up with some way to not look so stupid.
I personally do not think the show is rigged or even scripted. It was just Paula not even paying attention to what was going on.
Stefunny - I know - you are right. It all is what it is. I argued with my husband last year when I got the Daughtry cd that I BET you a million dollars that a whole bunch of these will be # 1 and he said NO WAY and look what happened there, he was only into Smashing Pumpkins and Staind and now he will listen to Daughtry - so we shall see what happens here.
personally do not think the show is rigged or even scripted. It was just Paula not even paying attention to what was going on.
HER NOT PAYING ATTENTION IS JUST AS BAD, SHE GETS MILLIONS OF DOLLARS TO “JUDGE” AND THESE KIDS LIVES ARE DANGLING IN FRONT OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE, PUTTING THEMSELVES OUT THEIR TO BE RIDICULED OVER AND OVER IF THEY HAVE A BAD PERFORMANCE AND SHE DOES NOT PAY ATTENTION!!!??? THESE IDOLS LOOK TO THEM WITH SUCH HOPE ON THEIR FACES EACH WEEK AND I KNOW IT IS THE NATURE OF THE SHOW BUT TO HEAR YOU SUCK BEFORE YOU EVEN OPEN YOUR MOUTH IS BAD BE IT JASON OR ANYONE ELSE
Hey, I like Marilyn Manson! :P And I love Jason too.
Are you kidding me? Let’s protect Paula’s feelings, but who gives a rat’s azz about Jason’s feelings and the rumors that were started about David when they thought those comments were for him. Geez.
OMG! He’s Safe! I was just about to go in hyper mode!
Sorry Anjyl - my bad. I like your profile song - wish one of them had sung that.
Speaking of Marilyn Manson, my grandson beat him at pool a few weeks ago, here in New Orleans. LOL
Can’t believe the excuses they’re trying to shove down our throats. After listening to Paula’s interview with Ryan, it’s even more appalling. She continues to hold to her story that her ’second song’ comments were directed at David Cook, but worse yet admits that none of them heard Jason’s first song (they were too busy looking for paper to take notes on) and she had heard only a few sec of his 2nd song in dress rehearsal. THIS is supposed to restore our confidence? And the bigger issue is that these pre-conceived opinions are surely applied to all contestants, not just Jason. That’s why we get “that was the bomb” even after certain performers have forgotten lyrics in the live performance.
Could we not make outrageous non-fact based generalizations about fanbases and their motivations? It smacks of baiting, and as the regulars around here know, I DO NOT tolerate fan wars. Thank you.
This is exactly how all this made me feel, too. I was having so much fun with this season, even with some of my faves already gone and the resignation that my ultimate favorite would not be getting to the top, and then, just like that, my enthusiasm was deflated.
I believe that, too, but we would never know now, would we? I am a little disappointed, too, that Jason did not react to that situation by singing the heck out of that second song, but I do not completely blame him because maybe there was not enough time to recover from what was just starting to sink in.
Innocent live (I love the studio version, though) was not very good, and neither was I’m Alive the other night. I like David Cook, too, but not all of his performances have been good…to me, at least, since it’s all subjective.
I don’t totally disagree that the comment might have been merited if Jason had already done his second song (in the same way that he actually did) by the time Paula made that comment.
Badfish!!! ;D
My goodness, they finally turned up Jason’s mic and he sounded terrific on Cracklin’ Rosie. I wanted him to sing the whole song. He was smiling and just having a good time. His fans always knew he had a unique sound. I am so happy for him.
Grammie — I agree — he was truly the best, those two too-short lines in the beginning fracklin’ Rosie — and then it all turned to shit.
I rewatched those to parts more than once. FF between the rest of it.
So glad Jason’s safe.
Castro/Cook for the final would be my choice.
I’m not shocked we didn’t get the apology. But, I am kind of surprised that they decided to turn this moment into a “we love Paula, and so should all of you, no she’s not a crazy pill junkie cause Ryan says so” thing.
From the obvioulsy planted “Why are you so nice Paula” phone-in question, to her demure “look at me I’m trustworthy” outfit - the whole thing was just bizarre. However, a couple of weeks ago, I did mention that I was tired of seeing Paula’s boobs, so I am at least glad that Nigel managed to convince her to cover up the girls.
My only hope is that perhaps she apologized to him privately. Still, I feel for the kid.
Funny, from her question asking the little girl if she wanted to be a singer to the rambling segue about how hard the contestants work, I kind of thought that that was her idea of an apology (or sorts)- without any admission of guilt and under heaps of typical addled Paula-b.s. It felt like Paula wanted that moment to be significant somehow.
whoops, deleted.
Looks like Slezak agrees with MJ and many of us. I’m sure this will be posted shortly but in the meantime… here is his article. Check out page 2 - “what should have been said”:
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20007164_20171835_20196803_2,00.html
I have just watched Paula’s interview on ET and I am furious. It is all about Paula. Poor Paula and the rumors. Excuse me Paula, but you could have said, “I am sorry for what I did to Jason.” Not one word about the fact that he had only sang one song. She is so self-centered it disgusts me.