Sleeping With The Judge

What is this world coming to?
For decades, the running joke about such TV fare as “The Miss America Pageant” has revolved around female contestants sleeping with male judges to win the big prize.
And of course, as is the case with most jokes and salacious innuendo, there is no truth to it.
Well, there was that whole Miss Black America thing where one of the contestants decided to visit Mike Tyson’s hotel room in the middle of the night, but Tyson wasn’t technically a judge, so that doesn’t count.
Now, we have a new charge of a contestant claiming to have slept with a judge.
The twist?
The contestant was a guy. The judge, a woman.
Former American Idol contestant Corey Clark is making a big deal about the fact that he had a sexual relationship with AI judge Paula Abdul while competing on the show.
Wow.
What’s next, female bosses chasing male secretaries around the big desk? Female construction workers whistling at male bicycle messengers? Famous female company executives going to jail for insider trading?
On the face of it, this sounds absolutely absurd.
Paula Abdul is a forty-something bona-fide rich hottie.
The guy in question is a smarmy, scummy, street-wise twenty-something singer with a girl’s voice and bad hair.
Oh, and he is also perpetually broke, a convicted sister-beater (no, not a hip black female, his actual sister), and a confessed liar.
And did I mention his bad hair?
Leading up to his appearance on an ABC crap-u-mentary, it appeared pretty obvious why he would make such outlandish claims.
He is selling a “tell-all” book about his experience on American Idol, and it didn’t look like it was going to sell many copies with the only “tell-all” story involving the fact he got kicked off the show for lying about going to jail for beating up his sister.
He is also working on a new album, and as Madonna has taught us, whatever is lacking in talent can be compensated for with controversy.
Then there is the appearance money from talk shows and interviews, and the opportunity to score on a whole new parade of rich network hotties.
But then the dirtball came up with a paper trail.
Phone bills, medicine bottles and receipts for clothes that, if legitimate, give credence to his claims.
Ms. Abdul isn’t helping herself, hiding behind the “I’m not going to dignify such outlandish lies by answering questions about them” gambit. (You saw how well it worked for Bill Clinton and Michael Jackson).
If the claims turn out to be true, it could be the end of her tenure as an AI judge.
But in the end, she didn’t really do anything heinous (other than display incredibly bad taste in sex partners, which is a Hollywood trademark).
She didn’t pass him the answers to upcoming quiz show questions, she didn’t seal a pact to vote for him, (at that point in the competition, all of the judging was done by brain-dead Americans with good speed-dialing equipment, who managed to eventually select “Reuben Sandwich” Studdard over popular androgynous crooner Clay Aiken), and she didn’t tinker with the voting.
According to the scumbag in question, she did help him with advice, but telling him to get a haircut and pull up his pants can hardly be considered insider trading.
I’m hoping the charges are not true.
Not because I give a whit about the “integrity” of such seminal television fare as “American Idol,” but because I sense that Ms. Abdul is a genuinely nice person who got caught up in trying to help out an obvious loser.
(It’s a pattern…she was once married to Emilio Estevez).
As for the Clark-meister, he will go on to make millions, then will probably squander it on coke-parties and bling because that’s what scum bags do.
The sad part is that he’ll do it on the American dime, because that’s what we do; buy trashy, salacious books from pusbags like Jose Canseco, and plunk down buckage for CD’s by untalented hacks who have managed to punch the clock on their fifteen minutes of fame.