Paula Abdul: "This is hard!"

First of all...that's what she said. Secondly, anything is difficult to do when you're all hopped up on painkillers.

which contestant was it last year that the producers knew she was going home and had already bought her plane ticket, I can't remember, another too much reality show moment

How'd you know I was a psychologist? I have to stop being so damn transparent.

Imagine how good of a show it would be if;

1.You voted for who you want gone.

2.No more Seacase

3.No more Paula

4.Screen people with talent so there are no more William Hungs

This is a rigged show, totally, usually the 'winner' is the person in 2nd place ... so they can go off and do their own thing. Whereas the person actually that comes in 1st isn't going to go anywhere, so lets give them this so they have a flash in the pan at least (Ruben). LOL

Fox is not famous for integrity people, if you don't realize this, you are a sheep among wolves.

I wouldn't be surprised if American Idol was rigged. Then again, I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't. I don't really care that much.

But I have to agree that this proves Paula's stupidity (once again) more than that the show is rigged.

Here's an alternative theory:

The judges watch the performances and are immediately called upon to critique them. It makes sense for them to write some notes during rehearsals. It also makes sense for them to listen to rehearsals. And in my opinion, it makes sense for them to weigh in the rehearsals when they talk. I mean, if people really want the person with the most star potential to win, don't you want to hear from the people who have seen and heard them sing far more than the people watching the show. Like earlier this season, when Paula helped one of the guys out by mentioning how she saw the rehearsal where he totally nailed the song, but was a bit weaker during the show.

If it isn't rigged, the voters are still the voters, but they maybe get some other background info to help go with their own opinions about what they saw there.

Doesn't seem too far-fetched, nor particularly "unfair" to me.

Anyway, back to the theory:

After Paula's 57th mental lapse in as many hours, resulting in her pausing in silence for like 3 minutes to think up something nice to say to one of the contestants, the producers met with her and "urged" her to really write some thorough notes and comments during their rehearsals to use a point of reference on the live show, should she find herself once again focusing more on the special sauce in her coke cup (that's what she was referring to when she said "This is hard") than on the people in front of her.

The plan makes sense, especially for someone like Paula. And they've probably been doing it all along, but after that show they needed to "reiterate."

Then things go wrong. The plan totally misfires, and she reads too much of what she wrote when (as usual) she can't think of anything to say on the spot.

Just a thought.

ok - granted paula is a little on the nutso side - her story does have some credibility. she WAS commenting about david cook but it was her first comment that was for david and the second one that was for jason.

if you remember, her first comment was about it being nice to hear his lower register. jason's song was not at all sung in the lower register. but david's on the other hand... was.

i think she scribbled down some notes to remember what to say but mixed them all up. we all know paula is loopy sometimes but i think it actually was just an honest mistake and doesn't point to any show discredit.

I'd say they covered that up well until Paula said "I'm actually looking at your notes, David." As for the show being rigged. I'd say it's about as rigged as an NFL game. The refs can only do so much to screw one team without getting fined and banned for it. As for idol, all we're able to infer (infer, not prove) from this is that the judges are given prefabbed responses, which means that American Idol wants a Cook-Archuleta finale, which is why they utterly bashed Jason (though his ass deserved it), and spoke the negatives about Brooke and Syesha, whilst praising Cook and Archuleta (though they might've simply deserved what they got too).

Well, their user name *IS* Kooky........makes one wonder....

David Cook is totally do-able in this clip. If he's gay - I'm there.

YOu can tell also that after Paula mentions Jason's "second" performance, you can see Ryan Seacrest briefly look to the side. He may have been looking at someone backstage going, "Something's gotta give. I don't think she's supposed to talk about that now!".