With all the talk swirling that American Idol judges are being too mean this season, here's a way to wax that problem:
Make them into wax statues.
Indeed, Simon Cowell and Ryan Seacrest were the latest celebrities to be included in Madame Tussauds museum. Check out their likeness here:
We assume there's no Paula Abdul figure because the sculpters couldn't capture her odd gyrations and possibly drunken antics.
Ryan Seacrest recently talked to Us Magazine about various past Idols ...
On Clay Aiken: "Clay Aiken was the the ultimate Idol makeover story. He had a great voice from day one but his look and confidence grew out the success he had each week."
On Carrie Underwood: "I believe Carrie Underwood has the potential to be our biggest music star yet. She is beautiful and non-threatening. Her choices post Idol have been very wise. She is a superstar."
On Kelly Clarkson: "[American Idol] is a brand and so is Kelly Clarkson. She owns female pop music."
On Taylor Hicks: "Taylor was important for our show because he was not a typical Idol contestant."
With less than one month to go before the new season of American Idol kicks off, Ryan Seacrest tells People magazine that there will be some eye-openers early on.
"I was just on the phone with Simon, and we were talking about the auditions," Seacrest. "We taped the auditions a couple of weeks ago."
And?
"We didn't think we would go out and see the extremes that we saw. There is the extremely naive and the extremely good and not a lot in between, which is good," he said.
As readers should know by now: American Idol will resurface on FOX with two-hour editions on Jan. 16 and 17.
When it comes to his show's graduates, Seacrest â who'll also be hosting Dick Clark's New Year's Eve bash on ABC in Times Square â told People that he thinks they're top-notch."Look at Jennifer Hudson," he says of the Dreamgirls breakaway star, who was dismissed early in her Idol attempt. "I think this is an unexpected path of success for her. She's a great singer, but who would have thought she would get the Oscar buzz so quickly after being on Idol?"
Ryan Seacrest recently sat down with Access Hollywood.
He talked about American Idol returning to TV in January - and noted that despite five seasons of picking through the country's most talented and untalented pool, the sixth series will still be packed with drama.
"When we set out to audition the contestants this year I think some of us thought, what's gonna be left? We've done this for so many seasons and we were fulfilled," he said. "We saw plenty of naïve talent [and] we saw plenty of good talent, so it's gonna make for a very, very dynamic audition series."
Seacrest said this year he's gotten fairly good at spotting contestants who audition for the exposure despite a lack of talent. He also found, especially on the West Coast, a large number of candidates who were unaware they had singing deficiencies.
"I know in Seattle specifically we got tired of a few of these contestants that were just from another planet," he told a gathering of reporters Thursday. "We have been surprised this year that even those who we thought were putting us on we're really naïve and believed they were talented enough to make it to a second round of the show."
American Idol also came across a rather determined group of auditionees during try-outs.
"You will see some of the most aggressive contestants," Seacrest noted. "More so than ever, the contestants who came out to audition came out to win and will let nothing stand in their way."
But enough about the talent pool. Ryan weighed in on what we can expect from Judge Simon Cowell, too.
"He's become grumpier," Seacrest said. "It's strange because he's getting richer, but he's getting grumpier. It doesn't seem like it adds up."
It's been a Chris Daughtry-filled day here at American Idol Worship, so we figured why not cap it off with this classic image from earlier this year. As you can see, the one-time finalist and current lead singer of Daughtry is seriously pumped up after completing an inspired performance on our favorite show:
Next to the rocker, of course, is the popular American Idol host who's kicking some butt in our latest poll. In this picture, however, Ryan Seacrest looks less like the super cool MC we're used to and more like... an MC who's somewhat confused.
Maybe he's just daydreaming about on-again, off-again girlfriend Shana Wall. Who knows. All we do know is that this pic is a definite keeper.
Fortunately for Ryan Seacrest he was out ... of a planned sketch to set up the American Idol host on an MTV comedy show.
Ashton Kutcher came clean to Seacrest when the TV and radio presenter taped an interview with the actor. Just before cameras started rolling on the chat, Kutcher revealed he had devised an elaborate practical joke - for the show, Punk'd - to make Seacrest think his new dream home was on an earthquake fault line.
"I was gonna pull something on you ... There was a small window when it (house) was in escrow," Kutcher said. "I wanted to get into your property and establish a fault line underneath your house and sink about half of it, sink the front of the house into the fault line.
We were shooting, so I couldn't do it at the time. You got really lucky because it would have been brutal."
At least Seacrest can take solace in the fact that he's leading our poll for favorite American Idol judge or host. Hang in there, Ry!
American Idol host Ryan Seacrest, often known as the busiest man in Hollywood, found some time in between his many jobs to hit the town with on-again, off-again girlfriend Shana Wall.
In this picture, the two certainly appear to be enjoying their time together at the swanky Locanda Veneta Italian restaurant in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Friday night.
Ryan and Shana dated for several months back in 2004, and have been seen together a few times randomly since then. Is the flame burning once again? You be the judge. Actually, Ryan will be! All we can say for sure is that our favorite 31-year-old radio and TV personality will be back when American Idol 6 debuts this winter.
