Paula Abdul Breaks Nose Before Finale

LOS ANGELES (May 22) -- Paula Abdulbroke her nose over the weekend after she fell while trying to avoid stepping on her Chihuahua, her publicist said Monday

Paul Hawthorne, Getty Images

'American Idol' judge Paula Abdul is recovering after breaking her nose following a fall.

Source : Aol.com

Paula Abdul Breaks Nose Before Finale

According to Abdul's spokesperson, the former pop star was trying to avoid stepping on her dog when she fell and hit her nose.

Paula Abdul Breaks Nose Before Finale

Michael Becker, FOX

But fear not, 'Idol' fans -- Abdul will be in her middle chair to judge the 'American Idol' finale shows.

Paula Abdul Breaks Nose Before Finale

In many instances, Abdul's erratic ramblings and strange behavior have led many to poke fun at her and accuse her of being intoxicated.

Paula Abdul Breaks Nose Before Finale

Even the show's host, Ryan Seacrest, has been known to make a joke or two during broadcasts hinting at Abdul's interesting ways.

Paula Abdul Breaks Nose Before Finale

Abdul, who became a pop star with songs like "Opposites Attract" and "Straight Up," has had her share of embarrassing moments during her 'Idol' career.

'American Idol' finalist Blake Lewis back in Seattle

Despite gaggles of screaming fans and the instant fame of being an "American Idol" finalist, Blake Lewis kept it cool Friday on a "hometown visit" financed by the show.

Lewis, one of three finalists on America's favorite reality show, beatboxed on demand, sounding like a human mixing machine. He signed autographs and posed for pictures and handled like a pro all the questions ping-ponged at him.

What he didn't do was predict that he's going to win the competition. That, he said, would likely happen for Jordin Sparks, the teenager from Glendale, Ariz.

But Lewis, 25, who's been noticed on the show for his smooth voice, beatboxing rhythms, funky style and frosted locks, was cool with that too. During morning interviews at KCPQ/13, he said his first goal was to get into the to 10 and then the top four.

His main ambition, he said, is to pursue his music and communicate it to people. A lifelong dream, he added, is to host and be the musical guest on "Saturday Night Live."

But winning "American Idol"? Well, he's good with that too.

"If it happens, great. If not, I'm so happy if I got sent home yesterday. When I made the goal of the top four, that was the goal," said Lewis, who said his musical heroes are the band 311 and musician/producer BT (Brian Transeau).

And despite criticism of too much beatboxing in his performances, he said he won't shy away if it feels right.

"If I feel the performance needs it, I don't care," he said. "I've gotten, you know, criticism for my hair and wearing the wrong shirt. Criticism's criticism. It doesn't really affect me."

His prescription for handling all the hype and the pressure is: "Keep doing me. Keep true to myself." He later added: "I just hope everyone sees how much fun I'm having, because I'm having a blast. The only thing I hope comes across is that I'm communicating my song well with everyone each week."

In a finale, he said he'd love to sing with Sting, but others also came to mind, including Adam Levine of Maroon 5 and Bjork. "I'm everywhere in my influences. So much music inspires me."

Lewis has gone further in the pop-singing competition than any entrant from this region. Asked how he would rebound from last week, which judges considered one of his weaker moments, Lewis said, "I think I did well for that moment in time."

He did drop that he hasn't lived by the curfew the show sets for its contestants and goes out just about every night -- to see live music.

"They call me the rebel for that," he said. "I'm not 12 and I don't need to be baby-sat. ... For me, I get all my inspiration from going to live music and being around passionate people."

Friday at the Q13 studios he performed "All Mixed Up" live, followed by some freestyling with the aid of his loop machine and a chaos pad.

Lewis said the hometown support, especially for an "eclectic artist," has been amazing. He called the "American Idol" winnowing process and all of its attendant fame "surreal," and said he hadn't watched the show before auditioning.

"I'm kind of a hermit," he said. I stick to music."

He also gave props to a region that was assailed as the worst source of auditioners for the show by its judges and host.

"There's so much talent here. You can go down to the coffee shop and there's so much talent here," said Lewis, noting that two out of the three finalists -- Sparks is the other -- tried out in Seattle.

Asked what he missed about the area -- which he's been away from for nearly four months -- the Bothell resident said: "I miss the air and the water and pretty much everything about it."

Kara Pierre brought her 9 1/2- month-old son Jensen and some friends to see Lewis at Q13. He didn't get kissed by Lewis, but the baby did manage to tug at Lewis's shiny earring. "We all watch 'American Idol' together, with the babies," Pierre said.

Trailed by an "American Idol" crew and cameras, as well as excited admirers screaming "Go, Blake," wherever he went, Lewis made his way around town in a black and white Ford Excursion stretch limo. He was escorted by Bothell police.

But he managed to snag some private time amid the madness. On Thursday night he had a rehearsal and a private party with friends before overnighting at a downtown hotel. He said he planned to catch the Blue Scholars at the Showbox on Friday night.

At a 12:15 "mini-concert" at Westlake Center, Lewis was set to sing about four songs and have guest performers Sir Mix A Lot and Pat Monahan of Train.

The city of Seattle also planned to proclaim May 11 Blake Lewis Day.

'American Idol' veterans withdraw as Emmy executive producers

The Emmy Awards ceremony won't be getting the American Idol touch after all.

Nigel Lythgoe and Ken Warwick, executive producers for Fox's hit talent contest, have backed out of producing the prime-time Emmy ceremony in September, the TV academy and network said Friday.

The pair cited their upcoming commitments and current demanding schedule, including last week's American Idol charity special and the show's finale later this month.

They will be replaced by Ken Ehrlich, an Emmy and Grammy awards telecast veteran.

"We respect Nigel and Ken's decision and are fortunate that Ken Ehrlich has agreed to return to executive produce his fourth Primetime Emmy telecast," TV academy chairman Dick Askin said in a statement.

Askin broke the news to the academy's board of governors Friday.

Lythgoe and Warwick said in a statement they "realized that we could not devote the creative energy and time necessary to make the Emmys outstanding" for the TV academy and for Fox, which will air the awards.

When their hiring was announced in February, Fox Entertainment President Peter Liguori said the pair have raised "the creative bar with their innovative work" on top-rated American Idol and would do the same for the Emmy broadcast.

The event could use a shot in the arm. Although host Conan O'Brien drew raves, last year's broadcast averaged about 16 million viewers, the fourth-smallest audience ever for the ceremony.

The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences 59th Primetime Emmy Awards show is set for Sept. 16 at the Shrine Auditorium. Nominations are to be announced July 19.

The Emmy ceremony's executive producer has been announced as late as July, so Ehrlich isn't starting out behind schedule.

American Idol wraps its season on May 23 but Lythgoe and Warwick plan to remain busy.

Lythgoe, who co-created Fox's So You Think You Can Dance, is a judge on the summer dance contest series. He's also president of 19 Television, the TV division of 19 Entertainment, the company founded by American Idol creator Simon Fuller.

Warwick is senior executive producer for worldwide productions of the Idol format for Bertelsmann AG-owned FremantleMedia North America, which produces American Idol with 19 Television.

American Idol: Sanjaya, Simon Cowell, Howard Stern, and Dave Della Terza

Last week, Sanjaya's surprise appearance on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno followed hot on the heels of Jon Stewart and Aasif Mandvi's brilliant Partial-Birth Abortion skit ("America Decides") on The Daily Show about his being voted off American Idol. One was relieved to see the kid still on television, shy and charming, and free of anger as ever. And he was wise, saying he felt that he hadn't lived up to the potential Simon had seen in him, and had no hard feelings, taking the wind right out of the sails of anyone looking to pick a fight with him. He said he's not a country singer and knew he had bombed when he saw his Tuesday performance played back. Then he made a point that should not be missed. Who will win, he said, is "totally unpredictable, based on each week's performance." That is to say, there is no way to predict who will win American Idol because you don't know ahead of time what genre is next on the calendar.Clearly, many people have picked up on the perpetually and perennially boorish Simon Cowell's special animosity towards the kid, since he never bothered to disguise it, except in being careful, after Sanjaya's not-so-CBGB downfall, not to emphasize "American" when he said, "Based on the fact that we're supposed to be finding an American Idol..."

Obviously, industry players know quite well that America Does Not Decide. But Sanjaya is an American kid, half Italian-American as well as half Indian. He cannot recognize Simon's carry-over-colonial style, nor Simon's oblique manner of exerting his strangely assumed authority, because this very American teen has no prior knowledge of where it's coming from. Each show gave us a glimpse of his utter bafflement at the way Simon treated him.Simon Cowell is a denizen of another era, when Indian pop stars disguised themselves as Englishmen. Cliff Richard never made it to America at all, and mostly hid his Indian roots like Merle Oberon; Engelbert Humperdinck needed a ludicrous name borrowed from a deceased German composer to arrive piggybacked, if I recall correctly, on Tom Jones' transatlantic voyage; Freddy Mercury, sweet Parsi boy from such a nice family in Bombay, was only identified as Indan posthumously and fictionally by Salman Rushdie in The Ground Beneath Her Feet. If you were Indian, you had to go through Britain to access the rest of the world. Nowadays, it seems, if you're going to be a rock star of Indian descent, you still need to count on positive guidance from the West to win support in India. The Indian press has been inclined in many quarters to report or redistribute more of the bad news about Sanjaya, and less of the good news — essentially, whatever is being said here — although American Idol is shown in India a day later and audiences can figure it out for themselves. Is it possible that no Indian viewers noticed the American Idol band's complete unpreparedness and inability to support his very fluid but on target microtonal inflections that are a regular feature of Indian vocal music?Howard Stern and the highly prescient Dave Della Terza of VoteForTheWorst both have good reason to want to bring down American Idol. It's a bogus formula forced upon a home-grown art form. Clearly, the panel of judges is composed to reflect the notion that Simon Cowell is a WASP, but he is not. What extraordinary effrontery to suppose a fellow with a voice like an animated gekko's cantankerous cousin should sit in judgment of what works in America, let alone be its gatekeeper — even if he is a Sony executive.Perhaps the Idol routine makes sense in England, or once did. There isn't (or certainly once wasn't) any problem with looking for a pop song generalist there. Despite all internal distinctions (i.e., I can tell Johnny Rotten from Boy George, and still download Cream and Pink Floyd tracks when I'm feeling nostalgic), all British pop forms a distinct and unified subgenre in that it is always in some part a highly abstracted imitation of American music. But in the U.S. of A, where we never expected Bruce Springsteen to give us salsa, or Eddie van Halen to play Copacabana, or Beastie Boys to sing Motown, the Idol competition makes little sense. It is shaped like a baccalaureate of pop, with a series of courses administered in surprise sequence with a trip-you-up trickery aspect to the testing method that smacks of preparation for managing distant colonies in the midst of hordes of unwilling natives. In other words, the show's management can direct the sequence of styles especially to eliminate particular contestants on the management's whim. This sort of manipulation is not entirely unfamiliar to past generations in India who had to cope with the colonial imagination, but maybe now rock 'n' roll natives should become more completely unwilling to put up with this nonsense.

'American Idol' Fans Deliver World Record-Breaking Vote and Overwhelming Public Donations

'American Idol' Fans Deliver World Record-Breaking Vote and Overwhelming Public Donations for 'Idol Gives Back' Charity Telecasts on April 24 and April 25?? Telescope and FOX Announce New World Record for Television Telephone Vote; More Than 70 Million Toll-Free and Text Votes Cast, and More Than $60 Million Raised to Date

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LOS ANGELES, BUSINESS WIRE -- Telescope, the leader in participation media solutions, today announced a world record-setting event for television telephone voting for AMERICAN IDOL's 'Idol Gives Back' two-night special charity telecast on FOX April 24th and 25th. The April 24th performance telecast included more than 70 million toll-free and AT&T SMS votes cast for the six remaining 'Idol' performers. The previous world record was for the season 3 finale, which garnered 65.4 million votes cast for the 'Idol' finalists, meaning that AMERICAN IDOL smashed its own previous record by almost 5 million votes. The show also accumulated more than $60 million in donations from both corporate sponsors and viewers.
On Wednesday night, for the two-hour results show spectacular, more than 13,000 live call-center agents, across 31 separate call centers, were involved in 'Idol Gives Back' and a mass scale online donation system was set in place for the event. Telescope managed the sourcing and implementation of the technology systems required to process the donations from members of the public for the show, commencing the build-out in late-February with FOX and 'Idol' producing partners FremantleMedia North America, 19 Entertainment, as well as Charity Projects Entertainment Fund.
More than 30 million viewers tune in to AMERICAN IDOL each week to vote for their favorite contestants by dialing into the toll-free telephone numbers or texting in on their AT&T phones. Working with the show since its programming debut in 2002, Telescope has successfully managed 'Idol' voting for six straight seasons. Last season, Telescope announced nearly 580 million combined toll-free telephone and mobile text votes

"With the new world record-breaking vote volume and incredible generosity of the donating American public for 'Idol Gives Back,' participation media has come of age. 'Idol Gives Back' engaged the television audience beyond our most optimistic expectations," said Sandy Bennett, general manager of Telescope. "We, at Telescope, have worked for six seasons to ensure that the AMERICAN IDOL voting systems are capable of achieving mass scale while maintaining accuracy and integrity, and 'Idol Gives Back' demonstrates clearly the improvements and developments that we and our technology partners have put in place to extend the interactive capabilities for the FOX television audience."
Ellen DeGeneres hosted the show's live companion event via satellite from downtown Los Angeles' Walt Disney Concert Hall. The star-studded evening saw appearances and performances from stars ranging from Earth Wind & Fire and Il Divo to Kellie Clarkson, Celine Dion, Rascall Flats, Annie Lennox, Seal and Bono.
The more than 70 million calls and text messages that came in for 'Idol Gives Back' will be added to next Tuesday's tallies, said host Ryan Seacrest. Melinda Doolittle, LaKisha Jones, Blake Lewis, Chris Richardson, Jordin Sparks and Phil Stacey all return for the May 2nd telecast.
Telescope will keep donation lines open until the end of May.