Video: Drudge plays gotcha with Simon Cowell, none too successfully; Update: Cowell was reacting to something Paula said
posted at 9:30 am on April 18, 2007 by Allahpundit
Does anyone think Cowell was rolling his eyes about what happened at VTech instead of at the singer’s transparent invocation of it to deflect criticism? Anyone? Like K-Lo says, which of them really comes off worse here?
I await the inevitable calls for Cowell to be fired, to be shortly followed by national healing sessions led by billionaire pseudotherapist Oprah Winfrey and a six-figure book deal for heartbroken victim Chris Richardson.
Update: And of course a speech from Barack Obama connecting the incident to whatever other news item he’s trying to demagogue that week.
Update: Oh, for god’s sake.
Nigel Lythgoe, Executive Producer of IDOL, releases a statement exclusively to the DRUDGE REPORT:
“This is a sad time for everyone, so it is especially disheartening that a quick camera cutaway could have been misinterpreted. We’re sorry for any grief caused by this misunderstanding, but Simon was not reacting to Chris at that point. He had turned to speak to Paula and didn’t actually hear Chris’ final comments.
Update: Cowell says he wasn’t listening at the time.
Blowback
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Simon Rolled, His Show Must Fold!
/bullhorn
saint kansas on April 18, 2007 at 9:32 AM
Rehab…
Wade on April 18, 2007 at 9:34 AM
Ok, in defense, I believe he was rolling his eyes because the contestant was using the events of the past few days as an excuse for a poor performance. That’s what it looked like/sounded like to me.
stenwin77 on April 18, 2007 at 9:35 AM
Perhaps Imus can be the new judge on American Idol. =D
bambam on April 18, 2007 at 9:38 AM
Here too. The contestant’s attempt to deflect criticism was both shallow and pedantic. (family guy reference if you don’t get it :P)
lorien1973 on April 18, 2007 at 9:40 AM
Uh, who is Simon Cowell ?
DoctorDentons on April 18, 2007 at 9:47 AM
How soon before a facial twitch will get you pilloried?
This has gotten way out of control.
bbz123 on April 18, 2007 at 9:48 AM
Lets all let the families morn their fallen and leave the BS out (ya hear me Drudge!) for goodness sakes we lost so many good and fine people.
Dignity, class, respect, is what the families deserve.
Come on bloggers, lets can the x should have done y and if only z happened then the victims might have survived crap
Let them deal with their and our loss, our society is missing heros and angels, a yound RA who confronts somone with 2 guns, a couple of badly wounded students giving CPR to a fatally wounded student
And an old man, survivor of horrors both Nazi and Communist, choosing in an instant the life of his students over the rest of his life. Fatally wounded, still stuggling shoot multiple times so the last students could get away, all his students survived – lets let his memory survive as well
EricPWJohnson on April 18, 2007 at 9:48 AM
Or maybe it was Drudge’s shameless attempt to milk even more headlines out of the VA Tech shooting.
I see he must of ran out of red electrons for his header…..
I like Drudge, but he was WAY off on this one.
Dr. Gecko on April 18, 2007 at 9:48 AM
Of course.
Welcome to the party, AP; come on in, the water’s fine…
Jaibones on April 18, 2007 at 10:12 AM
I believe Simon had a reaction much like a parent talking to their child does…Simon was discussing the performanace and the contestant changed the subject to the massacre..If the contestant was that upset by the tragedy, sit on the sidelines, otherwise, get up there and do the song and listen to the criticism!
Pam on April 18, 2007 at 10:15 AM
I saw the clip of this on YouTube.
The guy did directly answer Simon’s criticism convenient drop on the tragedy at VT. I think guy could have held those comments until after he was being critiqued by everyone. It looks as though he was trying to redirect and deflect Cowell’s remarks by saying that.
“Gotcha” news is getting so old. I hope this doesn’t turn into another “Imus” rerun. The media is getting so predictable in what they try to cram down our throat as “news” nowadays. I don’t like Imus or American Idol, but the tabloid news to dethrone them is even worse than the shows themselves.
Planet Boulder on April 18, 2007 at 10:26 AM
Agree.
Glynn on April 18, 2007 at 10:29 AM
I rolled my eyes at this blogpost.
JayHaw Phrenzie on April 18, 2007 at 10:35 AM
Then it’s rehab for you JHaw!
PoliticallyIncorrectSandy on April 18, 2007 at 10:58 AM
Shifting the subject a bit…it’s amazing that the victims of this massacre at VTech were a microcosm of the best of America, the heroes, the selfless, the achievers. My heart aches at the loss.
stonemeister on April 18, 2007 at 11:02 AM
Simon always reacts badly when people try to get sympathy votes. He did the same thing when Brandon Rogers said “It’s my dad’s birthday today.”
Tanya on April 18, 2007 at 11:47 AM
Simon was never a sentimentalist. He’s just not a sensitive ’90s guy. The Big HE would NEVER have done that. Maybe bite his lower lip and feel “your pain”, but never rolled his eyes.
Jewel on April 18, 2007 at 12:01 PM
I actually saw this (which was a shame, as I don’t even like country music when it’s done right, and the only ones on the show whose singing doesn’t actually induce cringes are the three women). This guy had just finished a rather irritating performance, and was being combative about the (accurate) characterization of his voice as being nasal (“‘Nasal’ is a singing style,” I seem to recall him actually quipping). Then, abruptly, when it seemed he was about to run out of stage time, he stopped arguing the virtues of nasal singing and threw in a blurb about the Virginia shootings and his sympathies.
Maybe he was genuinely upset about it, which would explain why he seemed to be in a bad mood. But it also seemed like a potential attempt to deflect attention from the criticism he was receiving by making a crass appeal to popular sentiment. Whether or not that’s what Cowell was actually responding to, I’d say an eye roll would have been an appropriate response.
Blacklake on April 18, 2007 at 12:57 PM
Off with his panniculus!!!!
bloggless on April 18, 2007 at 1:06 PM
“How soon before a facial twitch will get you pilloried?
This has gotten way out of control.
bbz123 on April 18, 2007 at 9:48 AM”
Too funny!
CCRWM on April 18, 2007 at 1:13 PM
Remember when there were real shows on Fox?
Like Voyager, DS9, and Next Generation all at the same time.
*sigh*
And classics like Married with Children.
Kini on April 18, 2007 at 1:21 PM
Yeah Richardson was getting hammered, knew it, and made a chep sympathy play. Everyone I was with were rolling their eyes too.
Mangina is gonna win Idol.
Iblis on April 18, 2007 at 2:22 PM
Married with Children would never be able to be done today. They still show reruns because they’re hilarious and make you nostalgic for the days before America was PC.
PRCalDude on April 18, 2007 at 2:22 PM
Good for Chris, even with no talent, he gets his 15 minutes. May America spare us now and vote his sorry butt off the show?
Malpaso on April 18, 2007 at 3:26 PM
To be fair, Richardson’s the only Virginia native on the show (and, I think, a Tech fan). If someone has some moral authority to mention the tragedy, it’s him.
But, yeah, I take Simon at his word.
marykatharine on April 18, 2007 at 3:34 PM
Was that a eyeroll or did he raise his eyebrow ?
In any event, It’s a career capitol offense if seen
by the Ohhhh so perfect watchdogs . The MSM is
bad enough . Now drudge. . . . Ahhhhhh
Texyank on April 18, 2007 at 5:17 PM
“DS9″ and “Next Generation” weren’t Fox shows, they were syndicated. They may have both aired on your local Fox affiliate (I know they did here in Austin), but they weren’t part of Fox’s network line-up.
I believe new episodes of “Voyager” were exclusive to the UPN network, though the re-runs are now syndicated.
Is this officially a silly thread?
Blacklake on April 18, 2007 at 6:23 PM
Ha ! !
Texyank on April 18, 2007 at 6:46 PM
On the Vote for the Worst boards (why, yes, I do) they picked up on the eye roll immediately, and they all thought from the get-go that Cowell was just reacting to Chris R.’s blatant cynicism (which might not have been that blatant, considering he’s from Virginia himself).
And they didn’t fault Cowell one bit, they hate Chris R. on that site. They call him “Timberfake”, after another buzzcutted white douchebag with a penchant for nasally R&B.
Mark V. on April 18, 2007 at 7:05 PM
Now see, if people would have just voted him off and kept Gina, this would have never happened.
- The Cat
MirCat on April 18, 2007 at 8:00 PM
This man has been tabloid from the begining. For my linky linky sites, I’m all for Lucianne.com
MirCat on April 18, 2007 at 8:01 PM
I wouldn’t blame Cowell if he did roll his eyes at using a tragedy to score votes. I really hate it when people try to “own” a tragedy as if they’re saying something original about it by bringing it up. In this context, what’s the point of the contestant bringing it up? It’s as if I were to give a presentation at work about a web site and then close with, “My heart goes out to the victims at VT.” WTF?
Trying to one-up your competitors by making remarks about a tragedy is lame.
Seixon on April 18, 2007 at 8:59 PM
Fanjaya is not gonna win Idol, in fact, I’m predicting he takes his leave tonight, much as I’d like to see all those ridiculous fans of the show go apes*** if he stays. He really was too crappy for words last night.
Mark V. on April 18, 2007 at 9:00 PM
::sigh:: I have to admit that I’ve watched Idol the last couple of weeks. My daughter, who is in her freshman year at a Christian school, doesn’t watch any TV during the week, so she made me promise to email her with Idol news once it was down to 10 contestants.
The moment the “eyeroll” aired, I turned to my wife and said, “Simon is going to get skewered for that, because it will be taken out of context that he has no sympathy for the slain.” You all are right, I read Simon’s reaction as disgust at Chris’ deflection, an attempt to hunt for votes.
Obviously, someone in-studio caught it too, because a few minutes later Simon expressed a parallel comment of sympathy, something I know he wouldn’t do out of the blue, so it had to have been directed as preliminary damage control.
Freelancer on April 19, 2007 at 5:24 PM