She's Gone . . . They Said

By Lisa de Moraes
Thursday, May 1, 2008

Nanny Brooke, frequent forgetter of lyrics, finally got her walking papers on "American Idol" last night.

Ironically, she'd remembered all the words to her two Neil Diamond tunes this week, even the bit about no one hearing at all, not even the chair, in her second tune, "I Am . . . I Said." She did write one of the tougher lines on the palm of her hand -- about how the palm trees grow and the rents are low. Except she must have forgotten she was going to be playing the piano, which would've made it a bit tough to look at the lyrics on her hand.

But that's all moot now. Because Nanny Brooke is gone, leaving David Archuleta, Jason Castro, David Cook and Syesha Mercado, after one of the show's more exciting results nights.

How exciting?

Well, the Phone Company Sponsors Actual Phone Calls segment coughed up something non-gag-inducing: Tara Miller, age 46, from Petaluma, Calif., called in to ask Simon Cowell whether his kiss with fellow judge Paula Abdul (way back several seasons ago) was better or worse than his kiss with Tara Miller in his garden when he was 9 years old.

"Do you still look cute?" Simon asks before committing.

She cleverly responds she thinks he has aged well, and she thinks she has, too. Tara is apparently of the flattery-gets-you-everywhere-with-men school.

Simon explains to viewers at home Tara was "literally my first kiss, my first crush."

Show host Ryan Seacrest jumps in: "To all the kids watching: 9 years old is too young to kiss, you need to wait a bit."

Sadly, Simon never does reveal who was the better kisser. We think he doesn't want to embarrass Paula at the end of what's been a tough week for our Queen of Crazy.

Much earlier in the show, Seacrest addressed the rumors swirling around Paula in re her having critiqued Idolette Jason's two Diamond tunes after he'd sung only the first one.

"Last night the judges were thrown a curve ball. . . . It sparked a lot of gossip about Paula," Seacrest said. Paula, dressed as Patty Duke, sat in her chair looking stricken. Like if Patty had just discovered her boyfriend Richard was going to the prom with her identical cousin Cathy.

"The rumors are not true," Seacrest said.

What rumors? More on that later.

"She is part of our family and we love her."

Simon kissed Paula. Judge Randy Jackson kissed Paula. And they all live happily ever after.

Except, of course, Nanny Brooke, who weeps buckets when she hears her name called as this week's bootee and who, in a perfect ending to her long and improbable journey on "Idol," botches the lyrics during her swan-song repeat performance of "I Am . . . I Said."

* * *

Earlier in the day, after her breathtaking performance on Tuesday night's "American Idol," Paula explained how she was able to critique both of Jason's chosen Neil Diamond tunes after he'd sung only one of them. And then, she explained it again. Surprisingly, neither explanation involves (a) being drunk or (b) being given scripted comments in advance. Those were the two explanations most favored by The Reporters Who Cover Television in the aftermath of Paula Abdul's Best Meltdown Ever, with a slight edge being given to the "drunk psychic" theory.

In Paula World, however, what happened was she saw Jason sing his second Diamond tune during dress rehearsal and got confused. Or she mistook her positive notes on David Cook for negative notes on Jason's second performance Tuesday night. It could happen to anyone.

Each of the remaining five Idolettes got to sing two songs this week -- because you just can't get enough of Neil Diamond's cheesetastic tunes. To be fair to Paula, the producers had made a first-ever format change in the show, telling the judges they would not get to comment until after each Idolette had sung both of his or her songs. This meant all the judges, including Paula, would have to do something they had never done before: take notes.

Then, unexpectedly, after each Idolette had sung just one song -- follow me closely here -- show host Ryan Seacrest goes and changes the game plan again, bringing all five Idolettes back onstage and telling the judges he wants quick rundowns on each performance.

"Oh gosh, we've never had to write these things down fast enough," Paula begins when it's her turn. "Jason, your first song, I loved hearing your lower register, which we never really hear. The second song, I felt like your usual charm was missing for me, it kind of left me a little empty. The two songs felt for me like you're not fighting hard enough to get into the top four."

The audience by now is making uncomfortable "what the heck" noises in the background. Randy Jackson says to Paula: "Just on the first song, just the first one."

"Oh my God. I thought you sang twice," Paula says to Jason.

"Paula, you're seeing the future, baby, you're seeing the future -- come back," Seacrest says.

"This is hard!" Paula whines.

Clever Randy tells Paula the notes for the second song were actually her notes on David C.'s performance, which came immediately after Jason's. This becomes Paula's story, too, and the show's explanation the next morning. Except Paula then says she loved David C.'s performance, calling it "fantastic."

Smelling the conspiracy theories bloggers were already concocting, judge Simon Cowell decides to reinforce the made-for-TV reality that the second performances had not yet happened. He jumps in with his pans of each performance -- honestly, what did he expect, it's Neil Diamond night! -- and closes with: "You are the top five contestants. I want to see and hear the performances of a lifetime coming up the second time around."

"He's right!" Seacrest jumps in, picking up on Simon's plan to salvage the show's integrity. I know -- "American Idol" and "integrity," hardly ever see that in the same column. "Round 2's next -- coming up!"

Yesterday morning, Paula publicly explained what had happened. On Seacrest's radio show, naturally. Actually, it's a sort of consomme of explanations. Extra points if you can follow it through to the end.

"When I came to the show, I had to get a whole bunch of friends, and you know what it's like -- my entire family and friends wanted to come to last night's show," Paula told Seacrest.

"I convinced them, I can't get you in, can you go to the live dress rehearsal? So I was getting them all in and they got there late, and the only thing I saw in the monitor . . . was Jason Castro and he was singing 'September Morn' [his second tune]. So I'm writing notes on 'September Morn' 'cause I'm thinking, well, what's going on?

"Now the kids are coming out," she continues. "I'm going now, 'oh my God. What do we do?' When you [Seacrest] came to me and I just started looking at what I'm writing down -- we have never had to do this before."

Here's where Paula switches to the company line:

"I was reading the critique of what I was writing for Jason Castro and on the same page that I wrote was also David and I got lost on my notes. That was as simple as it was.

"And I did catch the last minute of Jason Castro," she adds, going back to explanation No. 1, a.k.a. "I Saw Jason Sing 'September Morn' at Dress Rehearsal."

We're told Paula never shows up until the show begins, and was not in her seat Tuesday when Seacrest began his show-opening blah, blah, blah.

And, by the way, what kind of fool throws a last-second change and then a change-of-the-change at a weirdsmobile like Paula on a live TV show?

"So what you're saying, you were talking about two different people but accidentally said 'second song'?" Seacrest says after listening to Paula on his show, toeing the party line.

"Yes," Paula says.

"Okay," Seacrest says.

The End.