It only took “American Idol’s” judging newbie, Kara DioGuardi, one episode to leave a memorable mark on season eight of the televised talent search.
In an attempt to dash the dreams of a bikini-clad hopeful, the panelist sang over the wannabe and gave the contender a pointed piece of her mind. Her tactic didn’t work, as Simon Cowell and Randy Jackson have a preference for talent-packed bikinis, but DioGuardi told Ryan Seacrest she has no regrets.
Seacrest, this time wearing his KIIS-FM hosting hat, accused “AI’s” newest leading lady of having a problem with “pretty girls” after she told Katrina Darrell, better known now as Bikini Girl, that she just didn’t have the chops to sing Mariah Carey’s “Vision of Love.”
“I love pretty girls,” DioGuardi insisted, before pondering whether or not the contestant in question was even all that pretty. “The thing with Bikini Girl, to be honest with you — I think she had a better body than her face.”
After taking that swipe, DioGuardi gave Bikini Girl a measure of props, before going in for one more low blow.
“To her credit, (Darrell) got so much attention, it was probably a good call,” the judge said of the singer’s barely there attire. “But we wouldn’t be talking about the bikini if she killed the song.”
Then again, Seacrest wouldn’t have brought up DioGuardi’s take on hotties, if she hadn’t engaged a contestant in an on-air sing-off. That’s behavior unbefitting a judge, after all.
Hugh Laurie never thought he’d to live to see 40 TV’s “House,” Hugh Laurie recently confessed to growing up with a “live fast, die young” take on life. The 49-year-old star told Playboy magazine he never even expected to make it past his 40th birthday.
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“I think I suffered from the arrogance of youth,” Laurie admitted. “When I was 15, I and a group of school friends took a sort of pledge that we wouldn’t live beyond 40. We decided we’d kill ourselves. In fact, there were some hardcore members of the group — I wasn’t one of them — who wanted to make it 30.”
Looking back, Laurie chalks up the adolescent suicide pact to the teen dream of eternal youth.
“(It was a) ‘I hope I die before I get old’ sort of thing,” he said. “Talk about arrogance. The arrogance of youth, it trumps all.”
Dish on the fly A tipsy fan gave Brad Pitt some unsolicited makeover advice, reports London’s Evening Standard. “Brad was enjoying a cocktail and chatting with friends at a party when this woman, who was clearly drunk, approached him,” an insider revealed. “She went on and on about how the aging make-up in ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’ made him look ugly as a dog.’” While she presumably accepted Pitt’s defense that it was all was necessary for the character, she didn’t leave the A-lister alone before chiming in on his current look. “She then said, ‘and you should definitely shave that goatee because it looks just horrible,’” the source added. … Amy Winehouse has extended her “well-being” stay at a luxury St. Lucia resort, but spies at the Le Sport Spa tell the UK’s Sun the embattled singer’s ignoring the booze ban set in place by her management and staff. “We keep catching her crawling past bars, or hiding behind chairs,” a source told the tabloid. “She grabs guests’ drinks and runs off, like a squirrel with a nut.”
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Tabloid Tidbits is compiled by Ree Hines.