TV with MeeVee: MeeVee Dishes the Dirt with American Idol’s Simon, Paula, and Randy

American Idol defines the word "hit." You can't stand around the water cooler at work without hearing conversations about last night’s episode. You can't pick up a tabloid magazine or look at an entertainment website without seeing an article about something outrageous that one of the hosts of the show said or did this week.

When its sixth season debuted last week, Idol delivered its highest-rated premiere ever. More than 57 million viewers saw that show, outperforming even last years record. Idol is back and better than ever, with more talented singers, more insane moments, and even more amazing performances.

MeeVee's own Steve Czarnecki cornered Idol's triumvirate of celebrity judges -- Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul, and Randy Jackson -- at the TCA Tour to dish the dirt on Idol Season Six.

PAULA ABDUL
You couldn’t have gone anywhere recently without hearing all the hoopla surrounding those satellite interviews you did. Millions of people around the world saw them before they were taken off YouTube. Paula, can you, for the record, explain what really happened?

Okay, what a lot of you may not know is that when you do the satellite media tours, you’re in a small room. You get up really early, 3:30 in the morning. You go and all there is is one camera that you’re looking into. You don’t see anyone; you don’t have a monitor that shows you; but you’re being broadcast out to different morning shows, news shows.

I did three hours of them. There were a couple of glitches throughout, but the very last one that I did after three hours had tremendous technical difficulty. What happened was there were split cities in my ear, but I thought it was all one group of people that were talking over [each other]. That’s what I was hearing in my ear. I’m going, “Oh, you’re having like a party there?” I had no idea that there were two completely different cities. So when they started to have technical difficulty, I was holding on, waiting. And I’m in a swivel chair and I’m swiveling and I’m very animated with my hands. Had I known that, you know, it’s cropped here, and that I’m actually answering questions… It was very weird, because what you’re hearing is not exactly who I was answering questions to.

Unfortunately, that’s what happened. I was answering to, was transmitting right to one of the cities. It’s so silly. It’s hard to explain unless you’re in there. But it’s very simple. I had two different cities in my ear. I was answering questions to [reporters in one city]; apparently it didn’t make sense to the person who was asking them.

How does it make you feel when people are in print and on blogs writing that you’re drunk or drugged?
(Sarcastically) It’s really fun. No, you know what? I have been in this business 20 years, but I’ll tell you this much. I’ve never had to weather the storm of publicity and controversy. It’s this show -- it's Huge! It’s a blessing, but it is often daunting, and yeah, sometimes it’s very, very frustrating like this. I mean, having a music career and selling over 50 million records or being the best choreographer during my time -- it's almost as if it never happened or it's insignificant, because I’m a judge on the worlds biggest show.

SIMON COWELL
Who are your some of your favorite contestants from Idol's first five seasons?
Well, I liked Fantasia, Tamyra, Kelly, and Jennifer Hudson, who I always said would have a great career. I always said Oscar. When that girl came into the room, I went, “Oscar.”

What’s your take on the scrutiny Paula's taken recently about her outrageous TV interview behavior?
You know, I’ve got to say, I’ve only watched it from afar. Look, we all work well together. I hate to admit this publicly, but I wouldn’t do this show unless Paula, Randy, and Ryan were on the same show. We’re all a bit nuts occasionally. We all say things which we’re going to get criticized for. But don’t condemn somebody for being a bit wacky occasionally or whatever, because it makes it interesting. Otherwise it’s going to be, like, just a boring show, and I don’t want to work with boring people. And to me, the whole thing was overblown. I’ve done it so many times, these public interviews. By about the end, I’m talking complete and utter rubbish. And if anyone had put the same clip with me on YouTube or anything else, it would have been even worse.

Do you think Idol's success would have been different on another network? Is there something unique about the show being on FOX?
When we started to sell the show, we got turned down by ABC, NBC, CBS, the WB, and UPN. And I think it's a credit to FOX that they allowed us to make the show we wanted to make. They haven’t done what a lot of other people have done, which is bury it by putting it out there three times a year. They protected the brand. They’ve been very good to us, and I also think to the producers. So it would be very easy for another network to say now that we would have been as successful [on their network]. I actually don’t think we would. FOX went out on a limb on this one, and I think they’ve been good on this show.

RANDY JACKSON
Idol seems to be one of the few shows on TV that families watch together. Why do you think this show has such universal appeal?
I've got 3 kids. I think what happens is that you can tie it in with the whole family. I think the music does that. The genres do that. You listen to music from the '50s and '60s that kids don’t even know, but they can sit there and enjoy it with their parents. That's really cool.

There’s a lot of speculation that the Coca-Cola cups on your desk might have more than Coke in them. What are you judges really drinking on set?
In the Coke cups, it’s all Coca-Cola products. It’s water, diet soda -- that’s the only thing in the Coke cups. I don’t know who’s saying that or what that is, but there’s nothing in the Coke cups.

As bad as they all are, we love watching the train wreck of bad singers on the show. Do you think you're giving false hope to the less talented singers, by putting them before the judges and on TV?
Let me ask you something. Do you think William Hung is mad that he came on this show? The guy’s made almost a million dollars for being one of the worst singers ever! Do you think he’s mad? Are you kidding? He’s jumping up and down!

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