‘Idol’ Chatter: May 17, 2006

It will be a horse race tonight between Katharine McPhee and Elliott Yamin to see who makes it into the finale.  I think everyone in Hollywood is positive that Taylor Hicks will be a lock.  That is, of course, if his fans didn’t get lazy last night and not vote enough. That’s what Chris Daughtry thinks his downfall was last week. 

People figured he was so good he would be safe and didn’t need to vote.  I can’t tell you how many people I know who are avid “American Idol” watchers and tell me that they never cast a vote.   My guess is that of the average 30 million viewers who tune in, only about half actually vote. That half are voting multiple times and that’s where the average 35 million votes come from each week.   

This week, I got a letter forwarded to me from Katharine’s sister, Adriana, written by their dad now dubbed the McPhather. Cute. He sends a “go team, go” style e-mail out to all of Kat’s friends and family encouraging everyone to vote.   According to the e-mail, producers told him Kat and Chris were neck and neck last week on telephone votes.  However, the text messaged votes are much lower than the guys.  So, he asked those who didn’t have a Cingular Wireless phone to go out and purchase a pay and go plan for the next couple of weeks.  Now there is some fatherly love!

It turns out Katharine’s been the center of attention her whole life.  Check out tonight’s Access Hollywood to see Kat belting out a tune at age 10 during one of her mom’s cabaret shows.  It’s adorable and proof she has always had talent.   If she does get voted off tonight though, her future is already looking bright.  According to her friend, James Mellon, George Clooney has offered Kat a part in a movie! Wow!

Last week, Ace Young came to our stage to set the record straight on some tabloid rumors about him.  One of the rags posted that he had an offer to pose nude for Playgirl.  Not only would Ace not pose nude but he never was made such an offer.  He’s pretty convinced if he did something like that his four brothers would beat him up and his mother would disown him.  His family sounds like my family.  Hey, but money talks here people. So, I had to ask how much it would take to get him to strip.  Try 5 million dollars!  I guess everyone has a price.  So, ladies start collecting and we’ll see how much we can gather. 

Ace has been in constant contact with the three remaining Idols offering to bring them everything from ice cream to cookies to help them deal with the stress.  He told me basically they are all just really, really tired.  I can imagine.  

I’m in New York City this week covering the Upfronts. It’s basically where the TV networks unveil the schedule for the new fall season and give advertisers and media a peak at the new shows.    Check out our Tube Muse blog later this week for my take on the good, the bad and the “what were the network executives thinking.”