Andy DehnartHoward Stern caused the media to freak out yesterday by indicating that he was interested in replacing Simon Cowell on American Idol. Or is he just trying to get attention like every other person who’s floating their name for the position?
On his show yesterday, Howard said, “There’s not a better job on the planet than judging that fucking karaoke contest.” But Howard also qualified his interest a lot, saying things such as, “It might be possible; we’ll see. They’d have to pay me a ton of dough because I already make a ton of dough,” and said, “What a cush job — $100 million for four months. Who wouldn’t take that?” (That’s according to The Wrap‘s transcript.)
The real question is, who’s actually buying this? $100 million? Four months? Simon Cowell apparently makes $45 million per season, but of course, that’s longer than four months, from auditions to Hollywood to pre- and post-season press. Also, Howard Stern hates to fly, which would make the auditions rounds difficult, never mind the fact that he currently lives in New York.
The L.A. Times’ report left out the key word in the “judging that fucking karaoke contest” sentence, protecting us from that scary word, and that they did that is important because I think the media is just conveniently ignoring the rest of what Howard said, like about that “shithead Ryan Seacrest and that fucker Ellen DeGeneres,” or having Clay Aiken and Katherine McPhee perform oral sex on him.
Mark’s Friggin summarized yesterday’s show and MJ has audio clips. Among other things, he said when terrible people audition, “I’ll put my boot right up their fucking ass. I’ll throw shit at them,” and then said he’d tase the bad contestants and fellow judge Ellen DeGeneres.
This is all very amusing, especially tasing bad contestants, but to me, it seems like Howard fucking with the press. He does not sound serious at all.
And it seems remarkably easy these days to get the media to run with the story that they are the front-runner. For example, there’s a New York Daily News report today that Madonna’s friend Guy Oseary is a front-runner for the job, and quotes “a Fox insider” who says, “His competition just can’t live up to his level of experience, and the people behind the show are slowly starting to realize it.” Does anyone buy that quote is anything but a desperate attempt to actually get people to pay attention